Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The vast majority of the nation’s nursing homes — about 90 percent — are staffed too thinly to properly provide such basic services as dressing, grooming, feeding and cleaning, according to a new federal study.
"You just don’t have enough time to give patients the proper care that you are required to — to bathe them and dress them," said Jeannie Holly, a nurse at Mariner Healthcare in Huntington, W.Va.
"You try to do your best, but you can spend about seven minutes on each patient before you have to move on."
Holly recounted being too busy to honor the request of a longtime patient to sit at her bedside as she died.
Dr. John Schnelle, a co-author of the report, which was ordered by Congress, said that nursing aides have to cut many corners. "They have to move quickly. They can’t talk to people a whole lot."
Seniors in poorly staffed homes were more likely to suffer from blood-borne infections, dehydration, bedsores, malnutrition and pneumonia.
The report found that homes should have a nurse for every 6 residents during the 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift. Only about 10 percent of the homes across the nation meet that standard.
About 50 percent of homes missed the mark "by a whole lot" and would have to double the number of aides to meet the standard.
A final version of the report is being prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services. It concludes that it would cost $7.6 billion a year for nursing homes to achieve proper staffing.
Most of the cost of adding additional nurses and staff would be passed on to the federal government because about 75 percent of nursing home patients are Medicare or Medicaid recipients.
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