Lack of training regarding reporting abuse at NHC facilities
TriCities.com did a great article about the lack of knowledge and trainig at a NHC facility based on a DHS reports here and here. The Virginia Department of Health conducted an annual, unannounced inspection Oct. 6-8 and the results were recently made public. Inspectors wrote that many NHC Bristol staff members were unaware they are legally required to report patient abuse to local law enforcement or to state regulatory agencies.
Also, the DHS Report on NHC Healthcare alleges that the home administrator once failed to notify a patient’s representatives of a sexual abuse claim that had become part of an ongoing police investigation. “I figured they were already aware of it since it was being investigated,” the unnamed administrator is quoted as saying to an inspector.
News that nursing home workers were cited as being unaware they had to report abuse shocked Virginia Long-Term Care Ombudsman Joani Latimer, a private agent contracted by the state as a nursing home patient advocate. “That is truly appalling,” Latimer said. “It’s not a new requirement ... it’s been in place for quite a while.”
Most of the 140-page inspection report focuses on health care, and claims that:
* Not all patients are receiving prescribed medications;
* Facility doctors have failed to examine all patients on a regularly scheduled basis;
* Not all representatives have been notified when a patient faces a new health problem.
Inspectors wrote that they interviewed only members of a single night and day shift about the state’s mandated reporting law. It requires police, doctors, nurses and other medical staff to report to supervisors and regulatory agencies any suspected case of elder abuse.
Mandatory reporters who fail to make a report can be fined as much as $500 for the first failure and $1,000 for following failures.
According to the October report:
* Two of the 35 staff interviewed did not state that they would report abuse to their supervisor and follow the facility’s chain of command.
* Twenty-one of the 35 staff members interviewed were not aware they were required to report the allegation to the appropriate state agency.
* Two of 35 staff members interviewed were unable to answer what agency they would report suspected abuse to.
* Twenty-three of the 35 staff interviewed were unable to correctly identify themselves as a mandated reporter of abuse or could not define the term.
NHC spokesman Gerald Coggin, e-mailing the Bristol Herald Courier from the company’s headquarters in Murfreesboro, Tenn., wrote that it is nursing home policy to notify families, physicians and the appropriate authorities when abuse is suspected.
Inspectors arrived at NHC little more than a month after accusations surfaced that a former nursing aide there sexually assaulted male and female patients for years.
On Jan. 27, former nursing aide James Wright will face trial on four charges of aggravated sexual battery, which police allege happened to four NHC patients between 2000 and 2007.
Once the police charges surfaced, former NHC workers told the Herald Courier that supervisors either ignored or threw away written reports of the abuse. The former workers also said they were afraid they would lose their jobs if they skipped the home’s chain of command and called state regulatory agencies.
The sexual abuse claim that the administrator reportedly failed to pass on might be connected to the Wright investigation, conducted jointly by Virginia’s Attorney General’s office and Department of Health Professions. According to the inspection report, the home administrator, when asked about the sexual assault allegations surrounding a particular patient, noted that it was being investigated by the Department of Health Professions.
