The Illinois Department Of Health has cited and fined Belleville Healthcare Center when a nursing home resident there developed maggots in her leg wound after staff failed to properly care for her dressing changes.
The resident in question was a mentally alert woman who had an open wound on her right lower leg and needed dressing changes three times a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).
The tragedy unfolded over several days. The last documented dressing change was on a Wednesday. The staff claimed they then changed the dressing two days later, on Friday, however there was no documentation to prove this, and the resident insisted it wasn’t done.
Over the following weekend, the resident repeatedly told staff something was wrong. She could actually feel movement in her wound, describing it as “creepy crawlies in her leg.” The dressing was visibly saturated with drainage, yet staff refused to help. Another resident even tried to advocate for her, telling the nurse “the dressing was saturated” and that the resident “could feel something crawling in the wound.” The nurse’s response was shocking – she told him to “mind his own business” and, according to this resident, said “it’s not due to be changed until Monday, I am not changing it” before slamming the door.
The situation came to a horrifying conclusion early Monday morning when “maggots were found in the sheets” and upon inspection, staff found “maggots within the wound bed.” The resident was immediately sent to the emergency room.
At the hospital, the situation was found to be even worse than initially apparent. X-rays showed the wound had deteriorated significantly, with “severe soft tissue swelling” that now “extends through to the underlying fibula” (leg bone). The resident had developed osteomyelitis (bone infection) and her wound tested positive for multiple serious infections including MRSA.
As a result of this negligence, the resident required:
– Hospitalization
– Treatment for maggot infestation
– 42 days of intravenous antibiotics for multiple infections
– Treatment for bone infection
The Director of Nursing later admitted that staff should have responded when the resident complained: “she would have expected her nurse to remove the dressing and assess the wound when the resident complained of discomfort.” The facility eventually moved the resident to a different room, as her previous room’s location near the smoking area meant there were “more flies in the resident’s previous room.”
This incident violated the facility’s own policy which required staff to check dressings for drainage and the presence of possible complications. As the hospital notes stated, the resident “states dressing is to be changed every MWF (Monday, Wednesday, Friday), but staff hadn’t changed since last Wednesday.” The consequences of this negligence led to a serious deterioration in the resident’s condition and weeks of intensive medical treatment.
One of our core beliefs is that nursing homes are built to fail due to the business model they follow and that unnecessary accidental injuries and wrongful deaths of nursing home residents are the inevitable result. Our experienced Chicago nursing home lawyers are ready to help you understand what happened, why, and what your rights are. Contact us to get the help you need.
