A Quarter of a Century
and Still Waiting for Justice
By Bee Becker

After 25 years and nearly as many Congressional Reports, one thing remains consistent.  Elderly and vulnerable adults are still at risk, every day.

Over and over again, heart-wrenching tales are revealed before hearing committees; government reports reveal abuse, neglect, poor oversight, etc.

After a while, it becomes obvious that the government agencies responsible for the oversight of the nursing home industry, as well as our legislators surely know what is wrong……year after year.

How does it feel to confront the current process as a consumer?  It gives a victim or their representative the clear appearance of depraved indifference to neglect and abuse; it seems that regulatory agencies aid and abet the industry in its quest for bigger and bigger profits, with primarily taxpayers’ dollars, at the expense of consumers’ lives and quality of life.

Do you live in one of the “Dirty Dozen” states?

A recent Gannett News Service special investigation by Larry Wheeler and Robert Benincasa, revealed that “nearly three-fourths of severe and repeated violations of federal patient care standards from 1999 to 2003 were at nursing homes in 12 states.  The type of violations included failure to protect residents from mistreatment, failure to hire staff without conducting criminal background checks and allowing residents to be abused and physically punished.

They are, in descending order:

Texas
Illinois
Arkansas
Washington
New Jersey
Kansas
Missouri
Indiana
Oklahoma
North Carolina
Mississippi
Tennessee”

What is also significant about these results is the “for-profit nursing homes accounted for 83 percent of the more than 500 nursing homes with repeated, serious violations, yet are only 65 percent of all Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing homes with higher rates of infections and pressure sores than those the government and non-profits own.”

In over 16,000 Medicare-and Medicaid-certified nursing homes, only 314 (less than 2%) received zero deficiencies.  Keep in mind that even ZERO deficiencies ONLY means that a facility is meeting MINIMUM standards.

[Gannett Series available at:
Http://content.gannettonline.com/gns/nursing homes/index.html]

How Well Is the Oversight System Working?

A July 2003 General Accounting Office Report on nursing home oversight gives little encouragement, GAO 03-561, July 2003 

“Twenty percent, or about 3,500 of the nation’s nursing homes were cited for harming residents or placing them at risk of serious injury…[mid-2000 through 2002].  State inspectors are failing to catch a large number of the problems.”

“Federal surveyors found examples of actual harm deficiencies in about one-fifth of the homes that states had judged to be deficiency free.”

Two significant statements:

GAO:  The data regarding oversight appears to be “unreliable”. 

Senate aide:  “…the surveyors are under-reporting [deficiencies], and there are problems of whitewashing reports by [home] supervisors.”  This is not news to us.

Now, it’s not rocket science.  The current oversight system has not stopped or even slowed down the harm and death; the most egregious cases rarely result in the imposition of the maximum penalties allowed by law.  What does this say?  That the system is NOT WORKING, by CHOICE.  It’s neither a deterrent nor an incentive to do the job the industry is well-paid to do.

What else is missing?

Crimes occur – horrendous, life-threatening “care”; unnatural deaths.  In your own home or community, any abuse or neglect of elders or vulnerable adults meets law enforcement head-on.  Nursing homes are nearly immune to these same laws.  Until the nursing home industry must be accountable to law enforcement, adult protection agencies and other officials within our communities who understand and are assigned to the issues, nursing home residents will continue to be denied protection under criminal law.  

To read GAO Reports on-line: http://www.gao.gov.