Posts Tagged ‘ Background Checks Nursing Home Staff ’

Shocker: 9 of 10 Nursing Homes Employ Staff with Criminal Records?

March 9th, 2011. By LucyC

Nursing homes, it seems, have lately become less about safety, comfort and good care—as the term might imply—and more about saving money. So, not surprisingly, standards are being dangerously compromised—that is assuming they’ve been established. Case in point, an investigative report by CBS News last week cited a government report which found that over 90 percent of nursing homes hired employees with criminal records—convictions. 

Apparently, the government ran background checks on all employees who worked at some 260 nursing homes on June 1, 2009, and found 92 percent employed at least one person with a criminal conviction. The report also found that nearly half of the nursing homes had five or more individuals employed who had criminal convictions. 

The report, by the Inspector General for Health and Human Services, revealed seven registered sex offenders gainfully employed at five separate facilities, while 43 percent of the convictions were for crimes including burglary, shoplifting, and writing bad checks.

According to CBS News, 43 states currently require nursing homes to run some kind of criminal background check. However, “only 10 states require both a state and FBI background check that would detect convictions in multiple states.”

“On its face, it’s shocking,” Janet Wells, director of public policy for the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care told CBS News. “People move from state to state and they may have an abuse record at another health care facility, that’s why we would prefer to see a national mandatory program.” 

Well, yes. That would seem the obvious solution, because here’s the real consequence of not having such a system: in January, LAS reported on a shocking incident in Santa Clara, CA, in which a Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Background Checks Nursing Home Staff, elder care, Elder Care Abuse, Nursing Home
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