Is your loved one safe in a nursing home?
Curious to know what was happening to a paralyzed patient in a nursing home when they were not present, one family decided to take matters into their own hands. They hired a company to install hidden cameras at Chandler Health & Rehab Center in Alabaster. Despite most of the employees providing professional nursing home care, their suspicions were proven to be correct when evidence of abusive personnel was found on the hidden camera footage.
While the police investigation of what exactly took place at Chandler Health & Rehab Center is still ongoing, it is not unusual for families to worry about their loved ones in the care of what could potentially be an unprofessional, neglectful nursing home staff. There are steps you can take in order to determine if your loved one’s nursing home is a professional, caring facility.
More than a million people in the United States wake up every day in nursing homes. If you’ve noticed changes in personality, behavior, or overall physical appearance of your loved one in a nursing home, you should start to question what exactly is taking place at the nursing home.
Medicare and the American Association for Retired Persons (AARP) both provide checklists on their websites to help with this. Some sample questions include:
Is this nursing home Medicare or Medicaid certified?
Is the nursing home and current administrator licensed?
Does the nursing home conduct background checks on all staff?
How many licensed nurses are on duty during each shift?
Does the nursing home look and smell fresh and clean?
Are there clear procedures to identify events or trends that might lead to abuse and neglect, and on how to investigate, report, and resolve your complaints?
Do the residents of the nursing have bruises, cuts, broken eyeglasses, or appear emotionally upset and completely withdrawn?
Nursing home abuse can take form in ways such as physical abuse, sexual contact, psychological abuse, or overall neglect to provide necessary elderly care. The elderly also may be taken advantage of financially, through fraud, identity theft, or simply by trusting the wrong person with too much personal financial information.
For more information on what you can do for an abused and/or neglected family member, contact Beasley Allen toll-free at (800) 898-2034 or visit our website at www.beasleyallen.com for a free legal consultation.
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