poor nursing home staffing Archives ⋆ Cathy Cress

Nursing Homes Turning into Death Camps

I have been learning that nursing homes are turning into death camps from Rachel Maddow not the federal government or aging community. I watch her every night as she is someone who reports the news fairly, focuses on facts and science,not what politicians and the president says. She reports what politicians actually do to avoid what the Trump camp calls fake news. This enrages me as why aren’t I hearing this from the aging community?

I learned that 17 dead bodies piled up in an NJ Nursing Home a week ago . Three days ago it was reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation that Nationwide, among the states reporting data, states indicate that cases have occurred at more than 4,000 facilities, and nearly 51,000 cases and over 10,000 deaths have been reported by in-long-term-care-facilities/

No Fed Requirements To Report Covid-19 Deaths

According to the Kaiser Foundation until recently, there was no federal requirement for nursing homes to report coronavirus outbreaks and COVID-19 deaths. This lead to an information gap for families, residents, and policymakers. After gutting the Obama regulations to improve care in nursing homes in 2017, On April 19, 2020,( many days after Rachel Maddow and the NY Times were reporting the horror(,CMS released guidance that would require nursing homes to report cases of coronavirus directly to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).This move is totally hypocritical after Trump is the one who caused the horror by slashing regs that would have prevented deaths. This new data is not yet available, but there are a number of states that are already reporting data on long-term care facilities.

When I saw the carnage of nursing home deaths, yet SNF’s asking feds for immunity I was even further outraged.

We Need Inquiry Into Federal Response

I blogged about the root of this problem a week ago We need an inquiry but more than that we need a federal response, which there is none and national coverage which is just starting to occur after the most vulnerable on the planet were locked up in buildings where no one could visit, filled with the people with the highest risk, and staff going from facility to facility as they need three jobs to keep them afloat and spreading the virus then becoming ill themselves

TRUMP CUT BACKS IN NURSING HOME STAFFING INFECTION CONTROL

This lack of staffing and cut back in infection control federally mandated by the Trump government. Trump cut back regulation upgrades mandated by the Obama administration

The Obama administration effort, finalized in 2016, requiring all long-term care facilities to develop infection control and prevention plans to detect, report and contain communicable diseases.

It also covered telemedicine, so required publishing infection control rates weekly in Nursing homes that manage from 1.6 million to 3.8 million infections each year, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. A 2017 analysis by Kaiser Health News found that 74 percent of nursing homes have been cited for lapses in infection control — the most frequent type of health violation.

So, aging professionals, I am going to give you Rachel Maddow’s sage advice,

Sound the alarm- Aging Professionals

Read your local paper for nursing home problems in your area. Now they are only being reported cumulatively by the New York Times and major papers. Send letters to the editor. Write to your governor. Alert your Area Agency on Aging.

Call Your Local Nursing Homes

Call the nursing homes locally and ask what you can do. Besides setting off the alarm can you organize PPE by getting a local club or group of women who sew to help, Even kids have contributed like this child in Boston who sews masks.

Scream to the top of your lungs.

A holocaust is happening and the Trump administration is ignoring the carnage – Rage against the coming of the night for the older people we all love and have devoted our lives to helping.

The New York Times reports that nursing homes have been been gaming the Medicare system, disguising that they are terribly understaffed, with not enough nurses and nurses’ aides, to call themselves “ Nursing Homes “ leaving resident alone without care on a regular basis .

The front-page story published this past Sunday, reported skilled nursing homes on weekends are not “skilled” and barely have enough staff to tend to the patients. One man who cares for his wife is quoted in the story that on weekends, the facility it is almost like a ghost town.

What the article refers to is staff ratios This is the number of staff per patient needed to care for patients who need a high level of care from the nurses and aides, to change diapers, feed them, dress them all the activities of living these patients cannot do themselves.

What the article alleges Medicare just discovered that the nursing homes have been lying for years on about staff ratios. Kaiser Heath News just reported that data from nursing homes coming from payroll tells the real truth about inadequate staffing to care for these very disabled patients

97 years old woman suffers move into retirement home while sitting on her chair in hallway; furniture stands around her

The payroll data that proves these severe staffing shortages leading to dangerous patient care comes come from daily payroll records Medicare only recently began gathering and publishing from more than 14,000 nursing homes, as required by the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Medicare previously had been rating each facility’s staffing levels based on the homes’ own unverified reports.

The government has been a party to this by coming up with their star rating, giving five stars like a Michelin rating ,to what they considered great nursing homes. But these stars were not verified by inspections on a regular basis or payroll records, and staffing was self-reported.

.So, by checking payroll records of staff the real truth came out- nursing homes are dangerous places to leave loved ones who need high levels of care. This is not like having a poor meal at a five-star restaurant. This is like putting your mother in a place that the government says has great care and having her die of neglect.

Why is Rachel Maddow Telling Aging Professionals About Nursing Homes Death Instead of the Feds????