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Nursing Home Crisis

In: Business and Management

Submitted By larsat09
Words 1161
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Nursing Home Crisis

Many may not understand what goes on at a nursing home. They think that it is easy work just taking care of the basic needs of a resident. As for the time that I have been a nurse aide I have found how hard of work being a nurse aide is and how much many nursing home forget the importance of meeting the basic needs of their residents. You would think that this would be the most important aspect that all nursing homes must meet, but just like every other business a nursing home is also money base, it is not charity. Many times in this hard economy nursing homes have to make cuts, and unfortunately they are cutting all in the wrong places. Many times office jobs in the nursing home are the last to be cut and the nurse aides are the first to be cut, and the reason being is because many states do not have laws stating the aide to resident ratio. Today, a local nursing home has just got a new hope in recovering the problem of the loss of success that their nursing home has encountered. They have begun to cut nurse aides and have begun to run the halls short-handed, unfortunately their complaints have went up and their residents have become very unhappy. The nursing home has now decided to fire the current administrator and hire a new administrator in hope for new ideas and better success for their nursing home. Although the new administrator has many difficult problems to solve she has a lot of faith in recovering the problem the nursing home is now encountering. The new administrated began looking through past experiences working in a nursing home as a nurse aide. She remember the hard work that was endure every day, and how every resident depended on those few nurse aides that work on each hall. To be a nurse aide you have to have the heart and love for each every resident, and this administrated motto was “treat every resident as you would want your own grandparents and parents to be treated.” Even though this was her motto that she lived by, she knew that many days that she worked as a nurse aide she could not give some of the residents full attention that many of the residents needed because of the low staff ratio for nurse aides. As the adminstrator went farther into the problem she realizes that there could be many consequence that could happen for being short-staffed that could be serious. Residents may not see or hear as well or think as clearly as they used to, leaving openings for unscrupulous people to take advantage of them. Mental or physical ailments may make them more trying companions for the people who live with them (Robinson, Benedictits & Segal , 2012). In the article “Elder Abuse and Neglect” they go over the topics of warning signs, risk factors, prevention and where to go for help. Many nursing homes today may need to watch out for the common warning signs of abuse so they will be able to see how their nursing home is being run. There is no law for ratio to aide anywhere in America. She began to realize that understaffing her nursing home will make abuse a common word that will be shrift around by residents’ families and friends which has begun to start. Being understaff may help in the budget control, but with under staff of nurse aides the residents began to see neglect. Neglect sounds to be a harsh word; as it is. Even though many of the nurse aides may never mean to cause any kind of neglect to any of the residents, being understaff begins to make that problem reoccurring. Nursing home neglect is one of the most common abuses in nursing home (Nursing Home Abuse Center, 2011). The four most common types of neglect that is seen in nursing homes today are; personal hygiene, basic, medical, and emotional. Personal Hygiene neglect is neglect that includes bathing to changing clothes. Residents sometime who cannot help oneself on their own take the risk of shifting for clothing or for oral care, which is dangerous because they could fall or pivot the wrong way. Basic neglect is neglect that prevents residents of getting basic needs like food and water. Many families feel that nursing homes will help residents meet these basic needs but with the lack of nurse aides on the floor will prevent residents that our full assistance on feeding to become fully fed. Medical neglect is neglect that many families believe would be less of a risk for their love ones. Nursing homes that do not fully staff their floors have the risk of residents to have bed sores from not being able to turn patients every three hours or not being able to have bed checks every three hours. With the lack of nurse aides on the floor residents can encounter emotional neglect. Emotional neglect is when a resident is not given friendly inaction. The stress of maintaining a floor short staff will make nurse aides have a lot more stress and will make them have less time to interact nicely and stress free with residents.
After the administrator came to figure out the problem of the nursing home she knows that the under staffing of nurse aides is what is hurting their faculties. Even though she has been able to budget the outgoing of the money on staffing. She has realized the faculties lost money in supplies because more residents have had bed sores that are needed to be cure. Many families are becoming upset with the care of their family members and have now moved them to other faculties with a higher ratio of aide to resident and have been happy with their move.
After a few months of having more aides on each hall and bring the ratio to 1:8, the faculty has been able to keep their budget. Even though they have more aides to pay each pay period they still are able to keep their budget because of the less supplies expense and having more residents in the nursing home making the monthly income increase. The new administrator has found the problem and through carefully elevation of the problem it was able to be resolve. Through hard work and faith the nursing home is now able to stay within the budget and be able to care for the residents basic needs and give them the best quality care that they deserve and pay for.

References
Nursing Home Abuse Center. (2011). Nursing home neglect. Retrieved from http://www.nursinghomeabusecenter.org/nursing-home-neglect.html
Robinson, L., Benedictits, T., & Segal , J. (2012, June). Retrieved from http://www.helpguide.org/mental/elder_abuse_physical_emotional_sexual_neglect.htm
Howe, C. L. (2009, August 04). Staffing ratios in nursing homes. Retrieved from http://www.pogoe.org/ask/nursing-home-ratios

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