The Nursing Home Business: It's Just Business

I first heard about the problems in nursing homes from Amy. I was not surprised that they wanted cheap labor. I was only surprised at how systematic it was. I began hearing stories of nursing homes systematically bringing people over from other countries to get the cheapest labor. If you want information go to the source. Amy Burle reports:

It’s Not Personal, it’s Business
I spent three years working in various nursing homes and found that the elderly warehousing business was at best disheartening and at worse criminal. Make no mistake about it; this is a business like any other. The top priority is to turn a profit. If the poor old people are well taken care of it is a rare and happy accident.

The marketing is good. Old people playing bingo and enjoying each other’s company. Movie night and pretty pictures on the wall. Happy health care workers who wake each morning ready to lovingly attend the residents in their care.

The reality is something else. Sure, there’s bingo and pretty pictures and movies in the day room. But the staff is ill educated and jaded by too much work and too little time to perform it adequately. It’s a tough task to do what they do. I commend them for trying and don’t get me wrong—most of them do care. But too much work is placed on too few people and at the end of the day, you go home knowing that you tried, but failed.

When you tour any facility they are likely to take you to the rehab unit, where the most able and aware residents are staying and the better CNAs and nurses are working. They don’t’ show you the wing where the rooms are filled with totally incapacitated people who are left for the better part of the day to stew in their own filth. Why is this?

Two reasons.

1. In order to be profitable, the facility pays its employees as little as possible for the most possible work it can pile on each person per state requirements.
And
2. In order to be profitable, the facility pays its employees as little as possible for the most possible work it can pile on each person per state requirements.But don’t hate the worker—hate the system. I’ve been a nursing home employee and I know how hard they work, how little they are paid, and how frustrated they are. I know they try. And when a resident passes on, they mourn them too. I’ve cried when a cherished resident died, I’ve fought with my boss for better work conditions; I’ve tried to shed some light on what actually goes down. Yet nothing changed.

I hope for the sake of those poor warehoused souls, that one day it will.