Skilled nursing facilities face strident criticism daily. A typical litany goes like this. Nursing homes offer poor access and quality, too few caregivers, rundown facilities, and deficient care plans. They disregard residents’ preferences and use excessive physical restraints and behavior-modifying drugs. They compel families to take financial responsibility, refuse to accept Medicaid or to bill Medicare, and evict improperly. Such attacks are unrelenting.
Now, balance that torrent of complaints with what you know about people in the nursing home business. Most I’ve met are dedicated, hard-working and passionate about delivering the best possible care. Especially the frontline workers perform extremely difficult, often thankless tasks for notoriously low wages. They transfer patients, feed and bathe them, ensure hygiene, turn the bedridden to avoid pressure sores, manage medications, deal with demanding visitors, keep records, maintain care plans, provide memory care and so, on and on.
Caring for frail, elderly, often cognitively impaired, sometimes belligerent patients is perilous. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that nursing homes were among the most dangerous workplaces in the United States.
So, how can we reconcile the bitter censure of nursing homes with the hard work and dedication of their workers, managers and owners?
The full article can be found in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News.
