 |
| New York's safe staffing law for nursing homes will be in full effect starting April 1. (WHAM photo) |
MaryDel Wypych's mom was in a nursing home for 13 years.
She said while she received adequate care, the same can't be said at all long-term care facilities across New York.
Especially when one nurse is taking care of 15 residents.
"At those kind of ratios, you can’t address people’s needs. If someone needs to use the bathroom, they can’t get to them. They can put a call light on and wait for well over an hour," said Wypych, a chairperson with the Elder Justice Committee of Metro Justice.Wypych advocated for New York's safe staffing law that's in full effect on April 1.
The new law mandates minim staffing and minim hours of direct resident care in nursing homes. It requires each nursing home resident to receive 3.5 hours of direct care.
"After many, many years of people trying to
get a law passed in New York State, we were asking for the 4.1 hours,
but due to the industry advocating for less hours, they finally gave in
and finally put the law at 3.5 hours per day," said Wypych.
The law, which took effect Jan. 1, was put on pause because of a health care worker shortage.
Mike Stapleton, CEO of Thompson Health, operates a five star nursing home.
He calls the law unfair.
Especially for the nursing homes continually providing quality care.
"A
lot of this stuff is done because there’s a couple of bad seeds so they
make rules for everyone based on a couple of folks who make bad
decisions," said Stapleton.
Stapleton said hospitals are bursting at the seams with patients needing to find a nursing home.
He said with the staffing mandate coming into play, it's only going to make matters worse.
"A lot of the for-profit nursing homes, it's very difficult for them to run their business and then you got these mandated ratios, these mandated staffing numbers on top of it and they're like, 'it's going to be worse,' and so what are they doing? They're closing beds. And they're going to close more beds and they're going to close more beds," said Stapleton.
Nursing home operators are being told to call a state line hotline if they have immediate safety due to the recent change.
No comments:
Post a Comment