Dad Died From Hospice Care Mistake

My dad was diagnosed with Parkinsons, MS and Lewy body dementia about 5 years ago. It has been a struggle and very hard to watch him go down hill. When it got real bad, to the point that he could not stand enough for my mother and I to move him, we made a hard decision. We all decided in-home end of life care was needed.

My mom hired a hospice company. The first two weeks went fine, besides them refusing to wash his hair. The beginning of the third week, he ended up needing a catheter. So the nurse tried and couldn't get it in, so she called another nurse. When this new nurse showed she unfortunately ended up forcing the catheter and he wouldn't stop bleeding. So my mom called for an ambulance. The hospice nurses didn't want him to go, saying it wouldn't be covered. But my mom went over their heads and had him taken in. It was so bad the ER wouldn't touch him, just slowed the bleeding down. They recommended a specialist, a Urologist to be specific. When we finally got him in, the Doctor said that the hospice nurse had essentially created a new path to his bladder. And only he would be able to replace it from then on. There was severe trauma and my dad suffered needlessly. We also had to deal with him bleeding every time he peed and him getting an infection. My mom made the right call and told the nurse's supervisors and got a new hospice company to help take care of dad. It was like night and day. We honestly can't thank those ladies enough for how they helped my mom and dad through it all. In the end he died from sepsis from the initial trauma to his urethra and bladder. He suffered worse than he needed to and was always asking us to pull out his catheter. Every antibiotic he tried didn't work and he just went down hill fast. It also worsened his Lewy body dementia in the end, and his body whithered away.

After his funeral, we collected as much information as we could. Got statements from the nurses, the ER, the Urologist, the nurse who pulled his catheter out when he died and from the coroner. It took us a month longer than all of the others, to get the documents from the first hospice company. And it was sent by their administrator. When we got the papers yesterday, they didn't mention the trauma, the nurse or the visit in general. The said it happened at the ER. Completely leaving out the entire day of them needing two different nurses to try to get the catheter in. My mom even has voicemails from the nurse who injured him asking if he was ok and that she was sorry. Many messages and calls on her phone that she saved. We have at least a dozen of eye witness accounts, photos of the injury and all the blood as well as the infection. We really don't want this happening to anyone else and we want justice for my dad. My mom is going to sue them, but how would we go about it? Is there more evidence we would need? And do we even have a chance?