Nursing homes face ‘life or death’ challenges due to staff shortages, advocates say

Two patients were found dead Sunday at a short-staffed North Carolina long-term care facility amid last weekend’s winter storm after residents requested a welfare check, according to a police report.

The Thomasville police report said two more patients were found in critical condition Sunday at the Pine Ridge Health & Rehabilitation Center and taken to hospitals. Residents requested the check, claiming staffers hadn’t been seen by some residents and couldn’t be reached by phone, police said.

[ALSO READ: Woman spent hours in cold after wandering from Rock Hill nursing home, family says]

A Channel 9 investigation uncovered a heartbreaking incident at a Rock Hill nursing home.

An employee, who wanted to remain anonymous, said a resident wandered out of Carolina Gardens Assisted Living and Memory Care Center and was left out in the cold for hours during a winter storm.

Family members said the woman is in critical condition.

The employee said the facility is facing a major staffing shortage, too.

Situations like these are not the norm, said Lauren Zingraff, executive director at Friends of Residents in Long Term Care.

However, they are examples of what can happen if staff shortages continue in nursing homes in the Carolinas.

“We have put a Band-Aid on what was happening in direct-care staffing and now, we’d say now, at this point, is hemorrhaging,” Zingraff said.

Long-term care safety advocates worry that staffing at nursing homes is dangerously low.

“This is what I mean when I say it’s dangerous for the direct care workforce to be so short,” she said.

She believes the tragedy in Thomasville is proof of a correlation between short staffing and the neglect of residents.

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“We are very grateful that this is not a norm,” Zingraff said. “That this is an extreme case a tragic case and that we are not repeating that across the state. But that extreme of a case is a sign and a symptom of what could come if we continue to have shortages of that extreme.

But staff shortages are becoming more common.

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The American Healthcare Association and National Centers for Assisted Living recently surveyed nearly 1,200 providers nationwide. Click here to learn more about the survey.

Nearly nine out of 10 nursing homes reported high or moderate staffing issues.

“It is a problem that was there even pre-pandemic, but the pandemic has just exasperated and made it that much worse,” Zingraff said.

Zingraff cites low pay and poor benefits in the industry.

“We’re talking about long-term care residents’ lives here,” she said. “We’re talking about life or death.”

Advocates say it’s OK to ask questions about your relative’s long-term care facility.

They say to contact the office’s administrator if you have questions about what’s going on behind the scenes.

If you have concerns or complaints about a particular place, contact the state.

RESOURCES:

• File a complaint in NC
• File a complaint in SC

(Watch the video below: Assisted living facility worker accused of stealing more than $100K from residents)

Assisted living facility worker accused of stealing more than $100K from residents (NCD)

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