Shocking look into nursing home violations
In one of the most enraging and saddest federal surveys I’ve ever seen, a staggering 94 percent of inspected nursing homes were found to have violations of health and safety standards. Ninety-four percent. That’s practically every nursing home in the survey. What’s even more shocking and vile is that the homes that were being run for profit were even more likely to have violations than non-profit facilities.
What does it say about us as a culture when our older generations are treated as disposable husks, barely worthy of the dignity and care that many people lavish on their pets? Pro football player Michael Vick was sent to prison for funding a dog fighting operation that was deemed cruel. Shouldn’t the people responsible for egregious violations at nursing homes be subject to at least the same punishment?
The report, compiled by Daniel R. Levinson, Inspector General of the government’s Department of Human Services, details a long list of problems – many of them typical of a medical facility where criminal neglect is the norm: infected bedsores, substandard food, inexact administering of medication, and even abuse. Levinson’s report claims that as many as 17 percent of nursing homes have violations that cause “actual harm or jeopardy” to patients.
The percentages in the report are appalling: of the 37,150 complaints lodged against nursing homes last year, federal inspectors were able to substantiate nearly 40 percent of them. Fully one fifth of the claims confirmed involved outright abuse or intentional neglect. It’s nauseating.
The survey discovered that 94 percent of for-profit homes had deficiencies, as did 88 percent of non-profit homes, and 91 percent of homes run by the U.S. government.
Is it any wonder no one wants to end up in one of these places?
If you think you’re mad now, wait ’til you hear the rationalization and defense of these loathsome institutions by their paid mouthpiece Bruce A. Yarwood, the president of a nursing home trade group called the American Health Care Association. While he does claim that the homes “need to do a better job,” he then goes into a sickening defense of the indefensible.
“We have been doing a better job, in treating sores, managing pain, and reducing the use of physical restraints,” Yarwood says. As for the damning federal survey, Yarwood brushes it aside. “It does not reliably measure quality,” he said of the inspection system. “It does not create any positive incentives.”
Positive incentives? How about simple human decency and compassion for your fellow man as an “incentive,” Mr. Yarwood. And aside from something as high-minded as that, what about the institutions that you represent simply doing what they’re being paid to do? These days, I guess that isn’t incentive enough.
All I know is that when more than 1.5 million of elderly are living in 15,000 nursing homes – the majority of which seem to be offering only substandard care – something needs to be done.
