Patient Lift - Legal Issues

Legal Issues

While patient lifts are often used by only one health care worker without assistance, most manufacturers require that two caregivers be present. However, the single caregiver approach makes the patient lift more usable in home care settings where there is often only one caregiver per patient. In either case, patient lifts require special care in their use, as any mistakes made may result in serious injury. Some injuries that have been caused by improper use or malfunction of Hoyer lifts have led to civil lawsuits.

In 1999, a lawsuit was filed after two women were injured in falls at a Massachusetts Sunrise Senior Living facility.

In January 2008, the family of an elderly Naples, Florida woman sued the nursing home where the woman was residing after she died from a fall off a Hoyer lift. The lawsuit alleges that the nursing home did not take X-rays following her fall.

In October 2006, Linda Ober, a resident of the Gateway nursing home in Oregon was dropped during transfer from a wheelchair to her bed while using a sling lift for transfer. The fall occurred because of an improperly positioned sling. The fall broke both of her legs. The nursing home failed to give her treatment following the fall for five days which resulted in the filing of criminal charges against two nursing employees and a 5.3 million dollar lawsuit against the nursing home. Ms. Ober later died of medical complications resulting from the fall.