Inadequate Nursing Home Staffing Leads to Neglect

Inadequate staffing in nursing homes is a rather common occurrence because the turnover rate for nursing home employees is so high.  Because working with nursing home residents involves a lot of heavy lifting and other hard work, many people can’t handle the stress and the physical strain.  They leave their nursing home jobs for positions in hospitals or other medical facilities where they can work with younger patients who need less total care.  This creates a problem for nursing home administrators because they still need to fill each position within their facilities.  This often leads to hiring unqualified or inexperienced people to do jobs which should really be done by people with the professional skills necessary to do the jobs right.  Having an inadequate number of staff members means there aren’t enough people to check and balance each other, leaving room for abuse and neglect to occur without notice.  Not all nursing home employees who are abusive or neglectful start out that way.  They are not bad people; they simply get overwhelmed by the heavy workloads they’re handling and take actions they wouldn’t take if they weren’t so stressed out.  Neglect happens when residents aren’t cared for properly.  When staffing levels are inadequate, employees may cut corners to meet deadlines and try to do everything that is on their schedules.  When this happens, the care of residents isn’t as good as it should be.  Residents may not get the opportunity to exercise because staff members are performing other duties.  Instead of spending time with residents and doing activities with them, staff members may leave residents in bed all day or sit them in wheelchairs in the hallway.  Neglecting the medical needs of residents may also happen when a home is really inadequately staffed.  This can lead to dehydration, malnutrition, and serious injuries if the residents are not properly supervised.  If your loved one has been neglected due to inadequate staffing, contact a Los Angeles nursing home abuse attorney for help in taking action against the nursing home.