The New Normal for Nursing Homes?

Is this the New Heartbreaking Normal for Nursing Home Residents?

Is this protecting residents in nursing homes?

• Taking away families by eliminating in-person visits (especially in facilities with no positive COVID-19 cases in four months)

• Having no outside in-person oversight

• Having no minimum staffing requirements

• Taking away much-needed appointments such as specialists, podiatrist, hearing aids, eyeglasses, (going on five months now with no plans in sight to resolve)

• No Ombudsman in-person visits

• Poor quality of food

• Struggling to get water due to short staffing

• Obtaining bedsores because they can’t get out of bed or turned due to short staffing

• Aides afraid to go into resident rooms because they do not have proper PPE

• Dying without their families present

• Residents and families not being allowed to have quality Hospice visits while their loved one can still recognize them or able to communicate (special sections cannot be set up?)

• Refusal for anyone to set up a task force to address resident issues with family advocates and Elderly Advocates.

• Poor transparency and lack of trust in communications, policy, and procedures

• And to top it off, an immunity law that is presented to the public that it takes away frivolous lawsuits, but does not make it clear that legitimate claims of neglect and poor care will be excused from accountability and consequences as well

• No real-time cameras allowed in resident rooms.

The truth is, there have not been enough PPE, testing, staff and family advocates and caretakers not allowed in facilities are the reasons why residents are suffering and struggling. Having families stop visits has not stopped COVID from getting into the facilities, many times it is staff bringing it in. We are told to learn to live with it, by learning how to work with it, our kids go to school with it, but yet, they don’t hold nursing homes to learning to live with it. The way the residents learn to live with it is to go without and fend for themselves. We should never allow or accept this.