Need legal advice, about nursing homes

[dsc]

My mom, who has COPD, is in the rehabilitation part of a nursing home. She has been there for several weeks and is scheduled to be released a week from Thursday. For a few weeks before getting to the home she had been hospitalized. During the entire hospitalization and for the first few weeks at the home she hadn't smoked a single cigarette. My sister and I found out, a week ago Sunday, that she had been smoking for a couple of days. Upon finding that out we extracted a promise that she would be called immediately upon her having a cigarette. Given that promise we chose not to tell my dad she had smoked.

We found out today that she has been smoking nearly every day since then only because a resident who knows my dad told him that she was smoking. The smoking lounge is a locked room the key for which is kept at the nurses station, the community lighter is kept the same place, and an aide watches the patient as the patient smokes. In short, they damn well knew she was smoking.

For now, I need to know if she gets released on Thursday and my dad won't take her, are they responsible for her until we can line up a reasonable place for her to be. Neither my sister nor I live in handicapped accessible apartments and thus she really couldn't stay with either of us for more than a day or two. Also, is there any reasonable legal theory under which we could sue?

[amazona]

1. I don't understand

Isn't your mom an adult? Isn't she entitled to smoke if she wants to? I think it's too late to quit smoking when you're already in the nursing home. Wouldn't it just increase stress?

My lawyer says, yeah, you can SUE for anything but that doesn't mean a judge will hear your case.

I don't know what COPD is so maybe I'm missing something. I was thinking cardio/pulmonary disease but it doesn't quite fit the acronym so I'm stumped.

On Edit: I'm thinking my comment was untactfully phrased. It's just that I've had several elders end up in the nursing home for many, many years, and I have a fear of ending up there myself. The idea of being infantilized and denied the pleasures of adulthood, such as drinking, smoking, and sex...it just seems a bit unfair. I might be projecting. I really do hope things go better for you and your mom, it sounds rough.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

4. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

and technically you can sue for anything, but if it lacks merit, you are setting yourself up for a malicious prosecution suit.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

2. Are she and your father still married?

And if she is a legal mentally competent adult and smoking is allowed at the facility, then there's no damages. If she is mentally incompetent and there are doctors' orders not to smoke, there could be a negligence case.

[PaDUer]

3. Please call the social worker..

she can hold things off for you, IF you want her placed into a nursing home..but, you cannot sue due to her being stable enough to be released.

[Streetdoc270]

5. I don't believe so

The Nursing staff cannot deny a pts rights as long as they are competent. Therefore if she wishes to smoke they have to let her. You might talk to her doctor and get a prescription for anti-smoking aids (patch, etc...) Also he could notate in her chart that she should be discouraged from smoking, but there again if she is competent to make decisions then the nursing staff can't say no.

[dsc]

6. It isn't that they let her smoke

which they made clear they had to do, it is that they didn't call when they told us they would. Had we not been told we could be called, and thus would have been able to tell our dad she was smoking, we would have told him then and there. That would have given us both more time to decide what to do about it, and not have divided the family.