A comment on Nursing Home Abuse Leads to $1.9 Million Settlement

Floppydog — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 05:24:29 GMT

I was amused (in a sick way) by your reference to "Undertrained or uncaring" caregivers in nursing homes. I am a CNA in the Frontier and can attest that this is far from accurate. The problems encounteted in nursing homes are related to gross understaffing and underfunding. There exists a very small percent of society that is willing to perform CNA work to begin with, let alone for minimum wage. This is why newspapers and websites are peppered with ads for CNAs. When there is only one aid available for any given evening, this aid may have 30+ residents to care for at one time leaving at best, a few minutes per resident. How much "quality" care do you expect to get withing 3 or 4 minutes? It is very common for a family to drop off "Grandma" or "Grandpa" at 10 o'clock at night because they can't handle them anymore. Usually they don't have money as their retirement is spent so they are forced to go on state which pays the minimal amount for care. If you seek to attack the "problem" in nursing homes you might consider setting your sights on the cause rather then the effect. But then again, that doesn't pay as well does it?
If Mrs. Wart's health care plan specifies someone with her all the time, does it say where the funding to pay for this employee will come from? Who will be caring for the other residents? Its easy to judge caregivers as "uncaring" from the outside looking in, but until you've wiped a few thousand poopy butts...... stones and glass houses my friend.

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A comment on Nursing Home Abuse Leads to $1.9 Million Settlement