One of the great things about California is that the state has some of the strictest nursing home regulations in the nation. It’s a great deal of comfort to thousands of families who move their aging loved ones into one of the nursing homes there. They know that their family members will be safe, cared for, and respected. And then a story pops up about a caretaker who abused a resident or about a nursing home that was so filthy they couldn’t stop a chain of infections. So, you have to ask yourself – is California really doing everything in its power to protect some of its most vulnerable people?
On paper, the answer is yes. But unfortunately, the rules that were so carefully created don’t always translate into real life. The fact is, you can never truly know whether your loved one is receiving the care that they should be or if they’re a victim of a broken system.
How the State Protects Nursing Home Residents
At the federal level, there’s the Nursing Home Reform Act that sets the base standards for care and that requires all nursing care facilities to protect the residents’ well-being and meet their physical, emotional, and social needs. The regulations are enforced through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which oversees all nursing homes that receive federal funding.
California has added to this with its own laws. They’re outlined in Title 22 of the California Code of Regulations, and their focus is on improving the care residents get.
As far as what protections these laws include, there are several. Under California law, there are mandatory staffing requirements, which means all nursing homes have to have enough staff to properly care for their residents. They are also obligated to have a registered nurse available at all times. Residents have the right to feel safe, to be treated with respect, and to live free from abuse or neglect. Basically, they have the right to be treated as human beings, and the staff are obligated to do so. California takes these laws very seriously and the Department of Public Health conducts both regular and surprise inspections. In order to stay open, all facilities have to have a license and they need to meet certain standards.
If nursing homes don’t follow these rules, the government cuts their funding. The CDPH keeps an eye on the facilities and they can issue penalties or even shut them down if they don’t comply.
When the Laws and Protections Fall Short
California truly has strong laws in place and they’re meant to protect all nursing home residents. However, enforcement and implementation don’t always produce the results you would expect from such strict laws and the people who suffer most because of it are the ones the laws were supposed to protect – seniors.
- Gaps in Enforcement
When a violation happens, the consequences should be rigorous. The problem is, they are usually either minimal or delayed. The facility might receive a citation, but what happens immediately after isn’t that serious. This allows them to continue operating without making the changes the law requires them to make.
Lack of staff is another huge problem. The laws clearly outline minimum staffing levels, but a lot of facilities don’t comply, and that directly affects the quality of care the residents get.
Then there are penalties for repeated offenders. Most of the time, they’re way too lenient and they create little to no incentive for facilities to make compliance a priority. The result is a vicious cycle of hardly any accountability, which puts the residents at risk of neglect or abuse.
- Issues in Implementation
Lack of money is always a problem, in all areas. The state simply doesn’t have enough inspectors to keep an eye on all of its nursing homes, which means that a lot of violations slip under their radars.
Another problem is that the quality of care isn’t the same in all locations. Urban facilities usually have more funding and oversight compared to rural nursing homes. And the COVID-19 pandemic has made all of these issues worse.
- Examples
You don’t have to get creative to figure out how bad things can get for the residents. In September 2023, a 35-year-old caretaker was sentenced to one year in jail after assaulting an 87-year-old woman with dementia in a nursing home in Santa Ana. In this situation, you would of course hire a nursing home abuse attorney in Santa Ana, CA, but the damage has already been done and the trauma from what happened won’t go away lightly.
Conclusion
You can’t argue with the fact that California has done a lot to protect its nursing home residents. But is it enough? Unfortunately, no. Residents still get harmed and their families still can’t have the peace of mind knowing their loved ones are in the same place.
Going forward, we can only hope that, with collective effort from regulators, lawmakers, and families, we will be able to turn this around.
