Deciding to trust in the care of a nursing home is an emotional and difficult decision.
A decision must be made, one that will be extremely difficult for all family members involved. An illness strikes an elderly loved one and threatens their time with us. Options are low as this family member needs a higher level of attention and care than we can provide. The decision is made, and trust is given to the “professionals”. Their life depends on it.
The facilities brochures look amazing, their website well built, and the sales person was knowledgeable and able to answer all of your questions, putting your mind at ease during these troubling times. You are hopeful that the care, the quality of life, and the expertise promised will be what it takes to keep them in our lives to enjoy every day possible. The papers are signed, your loved is transitioned into their new residence with staff to assist, and you feel better, less anxious, and know that the choice made is in the best interest of your elderly loved one.
Once in the care of a skilled nursing facility, often our loved ones are able to live an extended life and enjoy their family over the coming days, months or years. Sometimes our loved ones pass away while in their care and there is nothing the staff, nor medicine was able to do to prevent that death. But sadly, sometimes these promises are broken, and the care we trusted in does not get provided leaving our loved ones with injuries, or causing death.
When a facility does not fulfill its duty the residents and patients, their lives, are put in grave danger. This danger, the act of neglect, is what plays a strong hand in shortening the life of a person we hold dear to our hearts. When a facility does not provide the care needed, the care required for a quality life, and our family members are harmed or worse, pass away, we need to hold the facility accountable. Without accountability, more people will be harmed. Without accountability, our own future care that we will require will be substandard as well. We need to work together to protect our elders, as change now will not only provide a better future for current residents but will also provide a better future of care for ourselves when we need the same level of attention.
It is in the confrontation of the problem where change will be found. But what is the real problem, you may ask? One of the main factors in today’s nursing home injuries and deaths is neglect caused by the lack of available staff, or acts of abuse. We have several videos discussing this issue on our YouTube channel, this video specifically discusses the staggering increase on sever violations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVEg0TutE9s
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When nursing homes do not staff at an adequate level, 2 things happen.
- One, the nursing home retains more and more profit by not having to pay the salaries of required staff members.
- Residents/Patients suffer because they are not provided care they need, they do not get the assistance they need, and injury or death are the most common outcome.
But do not take our word for it. Industry insiders are speaking out on the atrocities they are witnessing, and are asking you, the family of the residents to speak up on these heinous acts. The following is a direct quote from a publicly posted account on what happens in our Nursing Homes and other Long Term Care Facilities. This was written by Celia Smith, a pseudonym for a Skilled Nursing Facility Staff Member who cares for patients in these facilities. The story Celia tells is one of unfortunate truths exposing the real state of care provided to far too many of our loved elders.
“We are short staffed. EVERYWHERE. Don’t let any facility tell you otherwise. Nurses and aids are spread thin with an average ratio of 1 cna to 15-20 residents. (But, the number of residents is even higher in most facilities because they are so understaffed.)
If your loved one is incontinent, chances are they are lying in urine and/or feces for hours before we have time to clean them up.
Countless residents (especially female) are known to have urinary tract infections that we will not treat. If your loved one is incontinent, the risk of infection increases dramatically. You will be told that your loved one is “declining”. Your loved one will probably become septic in a matter of weeks. But, we won’t tell you that their death might have been prevented with a simple dose of antibiotics. We will tell you they declined quickly and there was nothing anyone could do.
We chart on how much care your loved one needed on our shift. The more care we document that your loved one needed, the more you will be charged. For example, if your loved one can use a walker but we are in a hurry, we may tell them to sit in the wheelchair and take them to dinner. We will go to the computer and document that your loved one was a “total dependent” resident when moving from one place to another.
As soon as it is possible, we will encourage you to put your loved one on Hospice. They provide supplies so we don’t need to. It also means we nurses have much less responsibility when it comes to your loved one’s medical care. Hospice is generous with morphine. If your loved one starts demanding more care than we have time for, we will tell you they are in pain or they are anxious and we need to start administering morphine to “make them more comfortable”. Your loved one will not be a burden to us for much longer.
If your loved one is using a walker, we will encourage them to use a wheelchair instead. We don’t have time to walk with them when 15 other residents are waiting to be helped. We don’t care if your mom or dad or spouse ends up confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their life. It makes our job easier when they aren’t wandering around.
Your loved one is almost certainly not being showered regularly. Most are lucky if we have time to give them one shower a week. If we can get away with it, we won’t shower them at all.
For residents who are very incontinent, we might put two briefs on them, one right on top of the other. (If the supplies are available, we might throw a couple of pads in there too.)This is even more common on 3rd shift. We hate changing a bed in the middle of the night if your loved one ends up soaked.
Your loved one is probably gotten out of bed around 5am. We move them to their wheelchair where they will sit for the rest of the day. If they are lucky, we will put their chair in front of a tv.
We put your loved one to bed as early as 5pm. It doesn’t matter if they are tired or not. The sooner we get everyone in bed, the sooner we can sit down and relax.
Visitation restrictions on you, due to Covid, have been a dream for us. We don’t have to worry about hiding all of this from you because you can’t see it anyway.
PLEASE SHARE SO FACILITIES ARE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THE NEGLECT AND ABUSE THAT HAPPENS EVERY DAY. If we don’t change this today, we will spend the end of our own lives receiving the same care they are receiving now.”
View the original post here: Nursing Home Neglect and Abuse
CONTACT OUR FLORIDA NURSING HOME ABUSE ATTORNEYS TODAY
Our experienced nursing home abuse lawyers from our Florida Offices offer free consultations and are eager to work on seeking justice for your loved one. If a long-term care facility, assisted living facility, or nursing home is responsible for the mistreatment or neglect of your loved one, our nursing home abuse lawyer can act on your family’s behalf and seek compensation and hold them accountable. We never collect a fee until we recover money for our clients, so there is no upfront cost to hiring our firm for support in reporting your nursing home issues for evaluation.
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