{"id":9431,"date":"2024-07-12T09:02:21","date_gmt":"2024-07-12T09:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=9431"},"modified":"2024-07-12T09:25:39","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T09:25:39","slug":"why-nursing-home-residents-suffer-despite-tough-staffing-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=9431","title":{"rendered":"Why Nursing Home Residents Suffer Despite Tough Staffing Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
\n
\n

For hours, John A. Pernorio repeatedly mashed the call button at his bedside in the Heritage Hills nursing home in Rhode Island. A retired truck driver, he had injured his spine in a fall on the job decades earlier and could no longer walk. The antibiotics he was taking made him need to go to the bathroom frequently. But he could only get there if someone helped him into his wheelchair.<\/p>\n

By the time an aide finally responded, he\u2019d been lying in soiled briefs for hours, he said. It happened time and again.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was degrading,\u201d said Mr. Pernorio, 79. \u201cI spent 21 hours a day in bed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Payroll records show that during his stay at Heritage Hills, daily aide staffing levels were 25 percent below the minimums under state law. The nursing home said it provided high-quality care to all residents. Regardless, it wasn\u2019t in trouble with the state, because Rhode Island does not enforce its staffing rule.<\/p>\n

An acute shortage of nurses and aides in the nation\u2019s nearly 15,000 nursing homes is at the root<\/a> of many of the most disturbing shortfalls in care for the 1.2 million Americans who live in them, including many of the nation\u2019s frailest old people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

They get festering bedsores<\/a> because they aren\u2019t turned. They lie in feces<\/a> because no one comes to attend to them. They have devastating falls<\/a> because no one helps them get around. They are subjected to chemical and physical restraints<\/a> to sedate and pacify<\/a> them.<\/p>\n

California, Florida, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island have sought to improve nursing home quality by mandating the highest minimum hours of care per resident among states. But an examination of records<\/a> in those states revealed that putting a law on the books was no guarantee of better staffing. Instead, many nursing homes operated with fewer workers than required, often with the permission of regulators or with no consequences at all.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.<\/p>\n

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into<\/a>\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0for all of The Times.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.<\/p>\n

Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For hours, John A. Pernorio repeatedly mashed the call button at his bedside in the Heritage Hills nursing home in Rhode Island. A retired truck driver, he had injured his spine in a fall on the job decades earlier and could no longer walk. The antibiotics he was taking made him need to go to the bathroom frequently. But he could only get there if someone helped him into his wheelchair.By the time an aide finally responded, he\u2019d been lying in soiled briefs for hours, he said. It happened time and again.\u201cIt was degrading,\u201d said Mr. Pernorio, 79. \u201cI spent 21 hours a day in bed.\u201dPayroll records show that during his stay at Heritage Hills, daily aide staffing levels were 25 percent below the minimums under state law. The nursing home said it provided high-quality care to all residents. Regardless, it wasn\u2019t in trouble with the state, because Rhode Island does not enforce its staffing rule.An acute shortage of nurses and aides in the nation\u2019s nearly 15,000 nursing homes is at the root of many of the most disturbing shortfalls in care for the 1.2 million Americans who live in them, including many of the nation\u2019s frailest old people.They get festering bedsores because they aren\u2019t turned. They lie in feces because no one comes to attend to them. They have devastating falls because no one helps them get around. They are subjected to chemical and physical restraints to sedate and pacify them.California, Florida, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island have sought to improve nursing home quality by mandating the highest minimum hours of care per resident among states. But an examination of records in those states revealed that putting a law on the books was no guarantee of better staffing. Instead, many nursing homes operated with fewer workers than required, often with the permission of regulators or with no consequences at all.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9433,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9431"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9434,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9431\/revisions\/9434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}