The Truth About Nursing Homes

Nursing homes and rehabilitation centers are supposed to be a professional, caring, and healthy environment for our loved ones. We should all know that they are far from professional and caring. The staff act professional when the state board or families are there, outside of that window of time the staff resort back to their natural state. What is their natural state you may ask. I shall tell you.

I am a certified nursing assistant in a local nursing home around my area, so I am able to see what happens behind closed doors. First off, the staff is far from caring. If the resident is unable to hear or is in a mental state to where they do not know what is happening, the staff curse at them and mock them. If the resident is in an altered state of mind they may babble and say things that make no sense. At this point, the staff usually laughs at them and leaves to tell the other staff about what the resident is saying.

Nursing homes are far from healthy and clean too. It is against standards to put soiled clothing or trash of any sort in the floor without cleaning it up. After changing a residents brief, briefs are the correct term for diapers, the staff will toss it in the floor. This may result in urine or fecal matter being left on the floor of the residents room. In no way is this healthy. Setting things in the floor with the clean side out is perfectly fine, but it is usually tossed or thrown down. In frustration, some staff will yank briefs and sheets out from under the resident and slam them to the floor as a method of stress relief. Not only is this unsanitary and dangerous, but it is very unprofessional and uncalled for.

In nursing assistant classes they teach the proper way to change a residents brief. In many cases, other methods are used in nursing homes. The proper way is to roll the person to one side, roll the soiled brief under them and then roll half of the clean one under them. Then you are supposed to roll them to the other side, remove the soiled brief and untuck the rest of the clean one. This way of changing a brief is supposed to be used on all residents. Many times two certified nursing assistants find their own way of doing this. If a resident is uncooperative or unaware of their surroundings they may "baby change" them. This means that one person pulls the residents legs over their head while the other takes the soiled one off and puts a new one on all while the persons legs are being held up. This is an embarrassment to the resident

Now many nursing homes and staff are not like this. There are always exceptions where the staff do care about the residents and show them affection. But now it has been told what a dark place many nursing homes are. People need to think about things such as this before admitting their loved one to an institute of higher care.