Perhaps your loved one is living in a nursing home facility. When you were deciding on which nursing home to choose, undoubtedly, you had a list of strict criteria to make sure that the nursing home was right for your loved one and so that you could walk away with confidence in knowing that your loved one would be taken care of properly and lovingly.
However, what seems to be true initially doesn’t always turn out to be true later on. When you took the tour of the nursing home facility and then spoke with some of the staff members, they may have positively impressed you. However, things may have changed, which can be concerning.
OIG inspected several nursing homes in New York State
The Office of the Inspector General has inspected a number of nursing home facilities in New York State and in many cases, it was concluded that those nursing homes were not compliant with federal requirements and protocols for preparing for emergencies.
Based on the inspections, the OIG could not confidently report that the nursing homes that participated in Medicare and Medicaid programs were compliant with the federal requirements for the safety of the residents and staff and emergency preparedness. It was determined that there were deficiencies in those two areas. This report was based on the inspection of 20 nursing home facilities in New York State. This puts the nursing home residents at increased risk for being injured or dying during an emergency, such as a fire.
What were the areas of noncompliance?
According to the OIG report, some of the areas of noncompliance happened for the following reasons: the staff was not paying enough attention to the residents, inadequate number of staff, staff was not trained properly or enough for emergency situations, and carbon monoxide detectors were either not installed or not checked periodically. Unfortunately, the safety training courses are not mandated as a requirement of the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
The state’s recommendations were taken seriously by some of the nursing home facilities and those facilities were committed to making the necessary changes so that the residents would be living in a safer, less-risky environment. However, some of the other nursing home facilities did not take the OIG’s findings seriously and felt no need to make any changes.
Legal advice from an attorney who specializes in nursing home abuse and neglect in Olean, New York
If your loved one is living in a nursing home and they are not being cared for properly or worse yet, abused in some way, the legal advice of an experienced attorney may make a tremendous difference in your case. Your loved one deserves to be properly cared for and the attorney can help you to fight for their rights and also show you how to protect them in the most effective way possible. No matter what the source of the neglect is, it is never going to be acceptable and you will need to fight to make sure that your loved one is protected.
