Court files show numerous lawsuits filed against nursing homes for poor care.

"By the time you are looking at a lawsuit, a resident has suffered," said Joani Latimer, Virginia long-term care ombudsman. "Ideally, what we would all want is for things to be solved at the earlier point and the lower level to make sure the resident is protected."

A local family says that did not happen for them.

The family of Roger M. Prentiss is suing nursing homes where he stayed. He died Jan. 11, 2006, at age 73.

Debbie Prentiss, married to Roger M. Prentiss Jr., said her father-in-law fell and broke his hip while at one facility and developed a bedsore on his backside when he stayed at a sister facility.

Pictures that family attorney Mark J. Krudys have show a gaping wound. Bedsores, also called pressure ulcers, are wounds that occur when a person stays in the same position too long. Nursing-home residents who are immobile and so cannot shift their bodies around are susceptible to bedsores if employees do not turn or shift them periodically.

The lawsuit alleges that the staff did not care for the bedsore and that it grew worse. The case is set for a July 9, 2008, jury trial in Richmond Circuit Court.

In a response filed to the suit, the nursing homes, the homes' parent company and a physician deny that they breached the standard of care and treatment.

Debbie Prentiss said her father-in-law had medical problems including diabetes, but they were under control.

The Prentiss children, Roger Jr., Donell and Lonzo Prentiss and Tammiezay Williams, say their father, who was a veteran and retired truck driver, loved to garden, walked several miles every day at a neighborhood walking track and would drive elderly neighbors and church members to appointments.

"I look around this house, and it's like he's not gone," said Roger Prentiss Jr., gathered with his brothers and sisters in the Richmond home where Roger Prentiss lived. "I see him in every room."