No Help and No Supervision Mean Poor Care for Nursing Home Residents

Most nursing homes have call lights or other signals for residents to use when they need help.  If you are visiting a nursing home, pay attention to when these lights go on and how long they stay on before someone responds.  If you see a light come on and immediately see an employee speaking with the resident over the intercom or going to the resident’s room to see what is needed, this may be a good sign that the employees are responsive to the needs of residents.  If you see a call light go on and it stays on for a long time without being answered, this may be a sign that the employees are not as responsive to the needs of the residents as they should be.  This can help you determine if the facility is a good fit for your loved one or if it should be avoided.  In a good nursing home facility, residents are supervised by the employees.  This may come in the form of organized activities for the residents or it may be in the form of specific employees being assigned to supervise a group of residents.  If you see that the residents of a facility are in the company of staff members at all times, this is a good sign.  It means that these employees are concerned with the safety of residents and do not want them to get injured as a result of being unsupervised.  If you see residents wandering the halls alone or sitting in wheelchairs with no one around, this is a warning sign.  The facility may not have enough employees or it may have too many residents, meaning that residents cannot be adequately supervised.  If your loved one is already in a nursing home and has suffered from neglect or been injured due to a lack of supervision, report your claim to an Orange County nursing home abuse attorney to find out what steps you need to take to remedy the situation.