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Muskogee nursing home’s failure to apologize triggers a predictable lawsuit
By Lauren | February 28, 2009
Recently, the Muskogee Phoenix reported that Ernest Maxwell, an elderly resident of a local nursing home, was beaten to death by another resident. According to news reports, Maxwell’s alleged attacker was known to have a mental condition and had reportedly hit others with the cane he wielded on Maxwell. Nevertheless, the bereaved family claims that the nursing home failed to tell them what happened that night, didn’t call to express sympathy, and offered no apology for its failure to protect Maxwell.
Is it any wonder that the family has retained an attorney and filed a civil lawsuit?
Apologies are important in any industry, but in the medical and healthcare fields they’re especially vital. Patients and families expect physicians, hospitals and nursing homes to care about their well-being, to provide all relevant information about health care issues, and to apologize when things go wrong. Withholding information, refusing to answer questions and, in particular, failing to apologize when the circumstances clearly call for it leaves injured patients and their families angry and bewildered. If they need information or want an apology and don’t get it, a lawsuit is almost sure to follow.
Maybe the nursing home’s management thought it was being prudent to stonewall Ernest Maxwell’s family. At this point, however, the nursing home will have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees, and will suffer a serious hit to its reputation in the community. In the long term, offering an explanation and apology would have been the more ethical (and probably less costly) way to go.
Topics: Apologies, Business Ethics, Professional Ethics, Risk Management, corporate responsibility, customer relations, ethics |
March 2nd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Lauren,
They deserve to be taken for everything they’ve got.
Indeed, they have demonstrated their lack of trustworthiness and should be de-licensed for an ethical breach of that magnitude.
When the elderly are admitted into their care, both the individuals and their families expect to be treated with proper care and respect.
Most families would surely understand that nursing home management is not perfect, and that accidents happen where problematic patients are involved.
But they would at least expect to be told the truth, and the fact that they weren’t virtually guaranteed that there be no form of goodwill between the parties whatsoever during the legal process.