Nursing Homes Lack Adequate Staff

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Nursing Homes Lack Adequate Staff

Nursing homes around the nation are not providing proper care. According to a new report by the Department of Health and Human Services, more than 90% of the nation's nursing homes have too few workers. Patients are left in their beds wet and labeled incontinent. Food is brought to them, but there is no one to help patients eat. Too many develop bedsores because there is no one to turn them.

The report recommended that homes should be required to have one nurse's aide for every 5 or 6 residents from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Currently, it's common for nursing homes to have one aide for 8 to 14 residents. The report states that over 40% of all nursing homes would need to increase nurse aide staffing by 50% or more to reach the minimum threshold.

Citing the costs involved, the Bush administration said it has no plans to set minimum staffing levels. The report concludes that "it is currently not feasible" for the government to require minimum levels of staffing, stating that it would require $7.6 billion a year over current spending.

Instead, the Bush Administration wants to publish data on the number of workers at each nursing home, hoping the problem will be resolved through market forces. However, market forces only work when there is an oversupply of nursing home beds. Currently, beds continue to be rapidly filled because families have few other choices.

The accuracy of government data on nursing homes has also been called into question. The Medicare web site that allows consumers to determine the compliance status of nursing homes throughout the United States, http://www.medicare.gov, omits tens of thousands of health violations according to a report prepared by the Democratic staff of the House Government Reform Committee investigating 52,000 complaints between October 1, 2000, and December 31, 2001. State complaint inspection data was not included on the Medicare web site.

Cuts in payments to nursing homes are scheduled to take effect October 1, 2002. Several Members of Congress have said they would vote for higher payments on the condition that nursing homes use the extra money to hire nurse's aides.

Source: "9 of 10 Nursing Homes Lack Adequate Staff, Study Finds," Robert Pear, "The New York Times," February 17, 2002. "Report: Nursing Home Web Site Flawed," Janelle Carter, The Associated Press, February 21, 2002.

To read more on this issue, click here to read "Congressional Corner: Congress Working on Legislation to Address Nationwide Nursing Shortage," an update from our March 2002 issue: http://www.tscl.org/NewContent/101441.asp.

To review a reader's story on this issue, click here to read "A Nurse's Story about Nursing Shortages" http://www.tscl.org/NewContent/101440.asp.

April 2002