A North Platte woman is suing the North Platte Care Centre, now known as Premier Estates, claiming that employees dropped her 65-year-old aunt onto the floor and that caused her to be wheelchair bound for life.

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Melody Lucero filed the lawsuit on behalf of Hazel Earll, a mentally retarded woman who was rehabilitating at the North Platte Care Centre.

The lawsuit was filed against the facility, at 2900 West E, and it’s parent companies, The Boyle Company Inc., of South Sioux City and Davbo Co. LLC. Other defendants are Timothy, David, Stanley and Patrick, Richard and Marcia Boyle and Pamela Barr, a nurse practitioner for Internal Medicine Associates of North Platte.

The lawsuit said Earll underwent surgery for a total replacement of her right hip at Great Plains Regional Medical Center on Nov. 20, 2006.

After the surgery, Earll progressed in rehabilitation of the hip at GPRMC and was able to bear weight on her right side, according to the lawsuit.

Then, on Nov. 22, Earll was transferred from GPRMC to the North Platte Care Centre for further rehabilitation.

On Nov. 24, according to the suit, NPCC employees were transferring Earll to the bathroom and dropped her, causing injury to Earll’s right elbow, the right side of her forehead, to her cervical spine and fracturing her newly replaced right hip.

The lawsuit said Earll’s right hip incision became infected and on Nov. 29 NPCC staff made an appointment for her to see Barr at Internal Medicine Associates.

On Nov. 30, the lawsuit said, Lucero requested that Earll be transferred to the emergency room at GPRMC due to extreme distress due to pain. X-rays revealed that Earll’s hip was broken in three places, the suit said.

The lawsuit said that the North Platte Care Centre failed to meet their obligation to care for Hazel Earll with a conscious disregard for her rights and safety. The lawsuit says that the NPCC hired and employed unqualified and untrained nursing staff and that the staff was chronically understaffed.

The lawsuit said that because of the poor staffing levels, the nursing staff could not provide even the minimum standard of care to the vulnerable residents.

Earll suffered from NPCC’s negligence when they dropped her, fractured her hip and left her wheelchair bound for life, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit claims that NPCC had a “reckless disregard” for the consequences of its actions and that the staff was not adequately informed of Earll’s needs and requirements. Nurse to resident ratios were so low that staffers disregarded patients personal needs, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also claims that NPCC marketed their facility and sought to have residents who had higher medical and custodial care needs that had previously existed in the population of residents in the defendant’s chain of nursing homes.

The lawsuit claims NPCC and The Boyle Company Inc. contemplated a “reimbursement scheme” by the Medicare and Medicaid programs that were available to residents. NPCC knew that increasing residents who needed higher levels of care would increase the need for staff services but did not staff up.

The lawsuit says NPCC breached their duty by failing to provide a reasonable amount of care in a safe and beneficial manner and by failing to prevent the mistreatment, abuse and neglect of Hazel Earll.

The lawsuit says that NPCC violated Nebraska law by failing Earll the necessary services to maintain good personal oral hygiene, failing to maintain clinical records with accepted professional standards and practices, failing to provide sufficient nurses, failing to ensure a nursing care plan was developed and failing to notify Earll’s family and physician of a need to alter her treatment.

The lawsuit also claims NPCC was unlawful by and deceptive representing that the goods and services they provide were of a particular standard when they were not. The lawsuit said NPCC advertised and represented that they were capable of caring for, handling and supervising residents such as Earll but that they could not.

Pamela Barr was named as a defendant because she made an appointment for Earll to see her orthopedic surgeon on Dec. 7 after an office visit with Barr Nov. 29, which meant Earll had to live with a broken hip for two weeks before receiving medical care for it.

The lawsuit said Barr should have referred Earll to the orthopedic surgeon when NPCC called, failed to take x-rays of Earll’s right hip, failed to adequately assess the damage to Earll, failed to report suspected neglect or abuse of Earll to the Department of Health and Human Services as was required of her, and returning Earll back to the care of NPCC.

Officials at Premier Estates declined to comment on the story.