Nursing Home Hiring Practices Fail to Screen Out Past Abusers

When it comes to hiring employees, it is the responsibility of nursing home administrators to check their backgrounds and work histories at other facilities to make sure the nursing home community is as safe as possible for residents.  Unfortunately, many nursing home administrators are bogged down with paperwork and are trying to hire someone as fast as possible to fill an open position.  Checks may not be done or, if they are done, they may not be as thorough as possible.  Administrators often fail to call personal references to check their authenticity and this leads to many employees getting away with giving false references.  An applicant may have a friend give them a good reference or they may pay someone to act as a former supervisor and give the nursing home administrator that person’s phone number.  Nursing home professionals with a negative past to hide can be very creative in making up work histories and creating professional references.  This doesn’t excuse nursing home administrators from the responsibility they must take if a new employee is abusive or does not have the education or training needed to care for residents properly.  Anyone with a loved one in a nursing home needs to do everything possible to make sure employment applicants are put through rigorous screening processes including personal interviews, on the job training, orientation programs, and a probationary period where they are supervised while they carry out their duties.  If any of these checks and balances show that the new employee is not fit to work in the nursing home, he or she should be fired regardless of the staffing needs of the home at that time.  It may be hard to work without an employee, but it would be much harder to recover from the serious injury or death of a resident due to the inexperience or lack of knowledge of someone who had a negative work history or falsified credentials.  If you feel your loved one has been the victim of abuse and you want the nursing home to take responsibility, contact a Los Angeles nursing home abuse lawyer to find out what you can do to take action.