What Are the Most Common Nursing Home Complaints?

Nursing homes can be exceptional places for your elderly loved ones to receive around the clock care or get the assistance to live their lives as best as possible in their old age. No matter how much research you did about the facility and no matter how much you visit your loved one, they could still have complaints about their nursing home.

Complaints can be a great way to get improvements in a long-term care facility when they’re about minor changes or slight issues that residents have with their care or the staff. However, if the situations being complained about put the residents at risk, then these could be about nursing home abuse or neglect that is occurring in the facility.

Let’s take a look at the common complaints that residents have about their nursing homes.

Common Complaints of Nursing Home Residents

Even though many residents in a long-term care facility are happy with the care that they receive, not every person is the same or receives the same level of attention. This means that some residents might have complaints about how they’re treated even though others are completely fine with the way the facility operates.

It’s important to take into account the complaints that residents make. Not only should complaints in care be taken seriously because residents are human beings who deserve adequate care and a good quality of life as the minimum, but also because complaints about small things can easily snowball into a resident experiencing abuse or neglect.

Here are some of the most common complaints that residents have about their nursing homes:

• Slow Response Time. One of the biggest complaints that nursing home residents have is that staff members take too long to respond to their calls. Call lights alert the staff that a resident needs help, and when there are too many calls, not enough staff, or limited time, then they could take longer than expected to get to the patient’s room when they call for help.
• Staffing Problems. Long-term care facilities often have problems where they’re understaffed, and the current staff is overworked. This can lead to mistakes that they make because they’re fatigued and burnt out. Since that’s not excuse for sub-par care, residents often complain when their staff isn’t working properly. If they have quick hires to fix this problem, they might be undertrained or not have the right certifications as well.
• Bad Food Quality. As mentioned above, patients deserve to have a good quality of life, even in a nursing home. When residents are served food that isn’t appetizing or not nutritious enough, they have a worse quality of life. It’s hard to ensure each resident is happy with a menu, but the facility should be giving them good quality food.
• Lack of Stimulation. If there aren’t enough programs or time for residents to be around other people, they can have a lack of stimulation. If they can’t have visitors, or have restrictions in seeing others, this can have a serious impact on a resident’s physical and mental health.
• Poor Quality of Sleep. There are many things that happen in long-term care facilities that affect a resident’s quality of sleep. Loud neighbors can make it difficult for your loved one to sleep. If staff comes in often to wake a resident up then that can also affect their quality of sleep.

The intention of nursing homes is to provide a space for elderly people to live as they would if they were still at home, but still having the perks of getting the care and help that they need at any time. When these complaints above are ignored, they have a lower quality of life, and their health can decline. In worst case scenarios, these complaints can lead to abuse.

When Does It Become Abuse?

All complaints at nursing homes should be taken seriously because in some cases, they can lead to a resident being neglected or abused. If a complaint is shrugged off, then a staff member might think that behavior is okay and continue to provide subpar care to a resident. Then it can escalate to that resident experiencing abuse from staff members or other residents.

Here are some of the forms of abuse that these complaints listed above can lead to:

• Isolation
• Purposefully taking too long to respond
• Malnutrition
• Dehydration
• Pain
• Negligent staff
• Physical abuse
• Emotional abuse
• Retaliation

Of course, there are other ways that residents can experience abuse, but these are some of the forms that might directly occur after they make a complaint about the care they receive. From that initial complaint, they might need to make more complaints, or they could end up filing a nursing home abuse claim if the treatment has escalated.

McMath Woods P.A. Will Get You Justice

When you trust a long-term care facility with the care of your loved one, you expect them to treat them the same way that you would. When your elderly family member starts complaining about the care they receive, or if they are showing signs of abuse, then it’s time for a nursing home abuse lawyer in Little Rock to step in.

At McMath Woods P.A., we’re here to stand up for residents of nursing homes who are being abused. We believe that you and your family deserve justice for what your loved one has wrongly been through. Reach out to us today for a free consultation so that we can get started working for you.