Understaffed at Nursing Homes Across the Country
Nursing homes are more desperate and more understaffed than ever. An article released from the New York Times outlines Nursing Home facilities across the united states and shows just over 14,000 nursing homes. Some with well-staffed employees, and most understaffed and just struggling to get by.
According to the map with about 960 nursing homes in the State of Ohio more than 70% of nursing homes are understaffed below the required amount for proper patient care.
Nearly 1.4 million people are cared for in skilled nursing facilities in the United States. When nursing homes are short of staff, nurses and aides scramble to deliver meals, medication, and most of all essential care for the patients such as bathing and going to the bathroom. Most of these things can be overlooked to the workers being burned out from working too many hours.
While Medicare does not set a minimum resident-to-staff ratio, it does require the presence of a registered nurse for eight hours a day and a licensed nurse at all times. Although these nurses are on the clock, they themselves cannot do everything alone especially with high volumes of patients in each facility.
Nursing Home Abuse/Negligence Signs
- Unexplained bruises, cuts, broken bones. Broken eyeglasses, lack of medicine
- Unusual behavior in the elderly person, witnessing threatening or belittling from care taker (emotional abuse)
- (Sexual abuse) bruised, bloody, or torn underwear. Unexplained STDs or genital infection, anal/vaginal bleeding
- (Caregiver neglect) Lack of bathing, dehydration, sickness of wrong clothing outside etc.
These incidents have been discovered in 100’s of Nursing homes across the United States, and continues to be a current problem with no one taking charge. Have you or a loved one suffered an injury due to nursing home negligence and decided to take action? Does a family member need help filing nursing home negligence claims? Contact my office immediately. As your attorney I’ll be there for you, and I’ll Make Them Pay!®