Maryland Fines Nursing Home With Most COVID Deaths
Nursing Home With Most COVID Deaths
Maryland State “regulators are fining Sagepoint Senior Living, the Maryland nursing home that has reported the state’s highest coronavirus-related death toll.” The facility failed to use appropriate personal protective equipment, it failed to separate residents who were suspected of having COVID19, or were known to have COVID19, and it failed to obtain lab results in a timely manner. Because of these types of failures, there has been an unprecedented number of nursing home deaths.
Nursing Homes Deaths Before and During COVID
Maryland and the US as a whole has come to a gruesome realization: Most nursing homes are not safe. Nursing home deaths due to failures by the facility are far more common than many realize. Many people believe that nursing home deaths are unavoidable and the result of the age, or health of the residents. This pandemic has placed a desperately needed spotlight on a broken industry.
People with loved ones in nursing homes before the pandemic are acutely aware of the many shortcomings of these facilities. Facilities fail to follow protocols with fidelity. They list fall precautions but do not implement them. Facilities document assessments, but do not performed them properly. They note interventions but do not provide oversight to ensure implementation. Facility failures that have caused nursing home deaths have been publicized to a greater degree because of COVID19, but they are by no means a new phenomenon.
Nursing Homes: Experts In Infection Control
Assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and long-term care/rehab facilities are the experts at infection control. They have the tools, the guidelines and the protocols. And yet, they have proven to be inept at it. Medicare and State Health Departments provide infection protocols to these facilities. These institutions have done so long before COVID19. Infections in these facilities have always posed a serious threat to the residents. Yet, the repeated failure to properly implement these protocols has never been more evident than it is now. Yes, this virus created the need for additional protocols. Which begs the question, would the fallout be nearly as bad had infection protocols been faithfully implemented before this outbreak?
Repercussions Now – Too Little, Too late?
Before the pandemic, the state fined nursing homes for failures. In order for a facility to be eligible to accept Medicare and Medicaid, there are requirements which must be complied with. The state and federal government has fined facilities that have failed to comply. Other penalties include placing the facility under “probation,” or shutting them down. Despite these penalties, these facilities continue to operate with impunity; returning to their old ways after the watchdogs have left. All of which has brought us to where we are today. Our most vulnerable population sits and waits. They watch their peers fall, wiped out en mass.
The Failure of Nursing Homes is A Corporate Failure
A nursing home is only as good as its’ lowest paid employee. Nursing home staff are often underpaid to care for your loved ones. This is especially true when the gravity of their duties is considered. Now consider the numerous other serious systemic issues that run rampant throughout these facilities such as: failing to properly and sufficiently staff shifts, failing to properly educate the staff, and failing to properly train the staff in the most important procedures and protocols. It suddenly becomes painfully obvious as to how nursing home deaths due to facility failures can occur at an alarming rate. Residents left in their excrement for hours, found on the floor after having been there for an unknown amount of time, they develop debilitating wounds, and they contract crippling, and often fatal infections.
The Body Count Has Shocked The Nation
How did we end up with a body count that has shocked our nation? It has been a long road of failures and corporate profits over people. We can only hope that it is not too late. Perhaps this will be the wake up call these corporations and facilities have so desperately needed in order to implement real change. Perhaps now they will start doing what they should have been doing long before COVID19.
