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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNursing Home Workers Share Explicit Photos of Residents on Snapchat
Source: ProPublica
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In February 2014, a nursing assistant at Prestige Post-Acute and Rehab Center in Centralia, Wash., sent a co-worker a Snapchat video of a resident sitting on a bedside portable toilet with her pants below her knees while laughing and singing.
The following month, one nursing home assistant at Rosewood Care Center in St. Charles, Ill., recorded another using a nylon strap to lightly slap the face of a 97-year-old woman with dementia. On the video, the woman could be heard crying out, Dont! Dont! as she was being struck. The employees laughed.
And this February at Autumn Care Center in Newark, Ohio, a nursing assistant recorded a video of residents lying in bed as they were coached to say, Im in love with the coco, the lyrics of a gangster rap song (coco is slang for cocaine). Across a female residents chest was a banner that read, Got these hoes trained. It was shared on Snapchat.
The womans son told government inspectors that his mother, who had worked as a church secretary for 30 years, would have been mortified by the video. Days after the incident, the home changed hands and is now known as Price Road Health and Rehabilitation Center. Greystone Healthcare Management, its new owner, said it provides extensive, on-going training, support and oversight to insure that we provide patient centered care. (The prior owner, Steve Hitchens, said the incident happened days before the home was sold and he does not recall details.)
Read more: https://www.propublica.org/article/nursing-home-workers-share-explicit-photos-of-residents-on-snapchat
deathrind
(1,786 posts)A family member recently spent the last two months of her life in a nursing home before passing away in Aug. I did my best to keep her with me to avoid her having to go to a nursing home but in the end the care she needed was more than I could do and still stay employed. I got lucky with the home she went to (did a lot of research prior) but still there were incidents.
It is horrible that people do the things in nursing homes like mentioned in the OP. People like that are disgusting and deserve ever bit of judicial punishment the law will allow.
demmiblue
(36,898 posts)Some of the things I would like to see:
1) More oversight.
2) An increase in mandatory patient/staff ratios.
3) A higher educated staff that is paid well.
4) Reasonable hours for staff.
5) And, like you, strict judicial punishment for those who violate the elderly.
6) Beyond the nursing home, I would like to see family care-givers compensated for their work.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)The average nursing home LPNs and RNs have aprox 30 patients per shift. This needs to change asap.
The Charge Nurses usually care more about covering incidents, rather than try to prevent them.
CNAs are overworked and underpaid.
And the list goes on..
It's simply unacceptable.
deathrind
(1,786 posts)...and every idea you put forth in your reply. To me it is absolutely disgusting how we treat elderly people in this country. People who for decades worked, paid taxes, contributed to their communities and helped to make the US what it is today. Then once they get to a point in life where age or health makes being employed impossible they are viewed as a burden on society. As someone who just lives off the government thru SS and housing (which they paid into and contributed to all of their lives).
It really is atrocious. It is bad enough to lose your dignity in old age (having to depend on others the clothe you, bath you, change the diaper does not leave a lot of dignity to hold on to after being self sufficient for 80+ yrs) but than to be degraded as the OP states, to have your government (republicans mainly) claim that you are a freeloader since you don't pay taxes as Romney did.. it is infuriating.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Fully one-quarter of U.S. nursing home inmates residents are under 65 and have significant physical disabilities. There is a federal program called Money Follows the Person to help get them back into the community, but it's a drop in the bucket.