Better Economic Times Are Not Necessarily Good For Nursing Home Residents
In a recent paper published by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College poses an interesting hypothesis. When the economy improves, nursing home deaths increase due to the simple reason nurses and health aides caring for the elderly decrease during economic booms. Frankly, this hypothesis is not at all surprising to me.
According to the authors: "[T]ight labor markets constrain the already scarce number of workers available for hire by nursing homes.... A greater scarcity of these front-line caregivers may have a direct impact on the elderly, causing them to die in greater numbers when the unemployment rate is declining."
In my experience, nursing homes pay their staff relatively poorly. They recruit less-than-stellar job candidates. As I often explain to my potential nursing home abuse and neglect clients: "Your aide can be flipping burgers at a McDonald's one day and caring for you the next." Although this may be an exaggeration, it is not much of one.
I believe, based upon my experience in pursuing justice on behalf of those injured by the negligence of nursing homes and their employees that staffing levels and quality of staff have a direct impact on nursing home residents' safety and well being. Honestly, who would argue otherwise.
If you or a loved one has suffered an injury in a nursing home you should contact an attorney who has experience in this area of the law in order to protect your rights. As I tell people, you don't have to hire me or my Firm, but you do need to hire an attorney to ensure the playing field is level with the facility...heaven knows it has an attorney on its side!
Let me get this straight: The California Department of Public Health performed investigations into the deaths of residents at the following facilities: Fountain View Subacute and Nursing Center in Los Angeles; Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills; and Downey Care Center in Downey. The Department found conditions at the facilities contributed to the deaths of three residents. So what did the Department do? It imposed fines on the facilities. FINES?!
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Although I am a lawyer, I do not typically write on "ins-and-outs" of nursing home or assisted facility law. Frankly, the laws can be complicated and do not typically lend themselves to a relatively "short" (for a lawyer, anyway) post on this site. I'm going to change it up a little today, though, because I think there is something you need to know.
Imagine walking into a traditional nursing home for the first time. There is a reception area at the front door. Turn right and walk down a hallway - there are resident rooms on both sides. There is typically a nurse's station. in amongst the rooms. There may be medication carts in the hallway. There may even be food carts for those residents who cannot make it to the dining hall. Imagine walking into this traditional nursing for the first time...and being told: "This is your new home." Well, that ain't like any home I've ever lived in...it's a hospital...it's an institutional facility...it is definitely NOT a "home."
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