I could quote a half dozen replies instead i will agree with the ladies urging you to sue. They should have notified the family if it was that serious - I know where I have worked it was mandatory.

Bed sores are a completely preventable occurance - they are a result of poor care. I have been a nurse for 24 yrs, I have never seen anyone who got the care they needed get a bed sore. I have worked in facilities where people came from home or were transferred from somewhere else and they already had them - in most cases they were treated and healed. There was one extreme case in which the patient did die from complications of the bed sores - they were huge and perpetually infected. The family sued, the facility in order to comply with the judgement had to comepletely overhaul their system for reporting and treating them. A committe was formed to evaluate each patient for the presence of or potential to develop bedsores. Treatment plans were made and followed through, the committee members monitored every at risk patient. I don't think the family was awarded any money, the last time I had spoken to them they said all they wanted was to prevent it from happening to anyone else.

I'm sorry for your lost

I just wanted to defend myself here before I get flamed for what I wrote earlier. I was not trying to tell you to sue the hospital- just wanted to let you know that there must be a problem with a lot of hospitals/nursing homes for negligence (from what the lawyer commercials I saw bedsores are considered negligence and you could sue a hospital over it). I think I mainly typed that to let you know that you are not alone in this matter if there is a lawyer commercial over that. I am sorry if I offended you- I did not mean for it to sound that way!

I agree with what the person who said about contacting the hospital over it- check out your MIL's charts to see if anything was noted about the bed sore and so on. I am sure the person who took care of your MIL after the hospital noted the wound care and so on down. If they had nothing on it- they should be aware that there staff was not taking proper care of your MIL!

Oh no, you didn't offend me at all, please don't think that. I appreciate everyone's comments very much.

Unfortunately I think this happens everywhere. My mom was at our local TOP hospital where the care is supposed to be excellent and you pay for it, believe me! She ended up with a bed sore there as well!! I think it's definitely worth looking into as her case was extreme but unfortunately I think this is the case so many places just because they are so short staffed.

Now the nursing home she was in until she died was Excellent (and I'm not saying you didn't do this) but we were there All The Time and she was one of the ones they tended to first since they Knew we were going to be there all the time and they never knew when. Another unfortunate thing, if you have an advocate there really often they do get better care. Sad but true.