What Baby Boomers Mean to Nursing Home Abuse
What Baby Boomers Mean to Nursing Home Abuse, is a problem bigger than many of us could ever imagine.
According to Health and Human Services (HHS), some 91 percent of nursing homes are guilty of “deficiencies,” i.e. instances where homes do not meet standards established by HHS.
Deficiencies refer to nursing home abuse (ie: financial, physical, sexual, and emotional) and neglect.
Many of these problems are caused by the huge under staffing problem that nursing homes have. Some 90 percent of nursing homes are known to be understaffed. Under staffing leads to inadequate staff to patient care time, mistakes in care, and heavy staff workloads.
In 2009, nursing homes were 82 percent occupied, with about 15,700 nursing homes in the United States, and 1.2 million senior citizen nursing home residents. Over 85 percent of nursing home residents are senior citizens according to npg.org.
Due to the vast size of the Baby Boomer generation, which will officially become senior citizens between 2011 and 2029, nursing home occupancy rates are expected to increase in coming years.
The Baby Boomer generation, one accounting for less than 2 decades, represents 76 million people in the U.S. The size of the generation is not the only thing to affect nursing home capacities.
Also to consider is innovations in medical technology. Plus, people are also living longer, which translates to a higher demand for skilled care Baby Boomer’s elderly years.
What Baby Boomers Mean to Nursing Home Abuse
By 2030, when the Baby Boomer generation has entirely become the new senior citizens group, the population of the United States is projected to be about 293 million people. Sixteen percent of those are projected will belong to the Baby Boomer generation.
That means that over 46 million senior citizens will be members of the Baby Boomer generation.
This percentage actually represents a decrease in the Baby Boomers share in the U.S.’s population.
In 2011, the Baby Boomer population represented 25 percent of the U.S. population.
So, it is not an unfair assumption to say that the Baby Boomer generation will lead to an increased demand in nursing home facilities and care in the next few years. That demand will peak, and then decrease as the generation depreciates.
Given the already insufficient staffing levels in nursing homes and the problems under staffing causes, if nothing changes, the Baby Boomer generation’s increased demand on the nursing home industry could increase the amount of nursing home deficiencies.
Through the Affordable Care Act, the Obama Administration proposes programs to attract and retain nursing home staffs, as well as educate them in order to prevent deficiencies. Whether this Act will be enough and meet its planned purpose is something we will have to wait and see.
So plan ahead, because What Baby Boomers Mean to Nursing Home Abuse is and will become a huge issue soon as Baby Boomers retire.
Guest Writer: Amber Paley
Amber is an advocate for Baby Boomers and Seniors. She spends much of her professional life writing about Nursing Home Abuse, and is a contributor to both PersonalInjuryAttorney.org and MedicalMalpracticeLawyers.org.
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This is NOTHING new because I worked in these homes way back in the late 50′s and 60′s and you think it is bad now you should have seen what I saw unthinkable.
In those days these older people were put into bed at four o’clock in the afternood for the night and injected with somthing to sleep and wake up in the middle of the night screaming for water and knocked out again. Their diapers were rarely changed and they would remain in them for days they would sit in their beds with all their body fluids and for days and days and sometimes there were worms in those beds so this has gone on for so many years I can’t count.
I would get sick and tired of seeing this and I wasn’t supposed to do this because I was young but I would change the diapers on grown men because I couldn’t stand seeing this for myself and turn over the mattresses so they wouldn’t have to sit in the dirty hole of the bed.
The man that I took care of tried to clean his false teeth and the morning they were gone but the home would give him back the wrong teeth and they were to small and they would cause his gums to bleed.
The other patients would steal his socks so he would wear all the socks he could so he would keep his feet warm no matter what the patients had that was theirs it would get stolen either by the patients or the people who worked there.
My patient came to my backdoor and begged me to help him and I did exactly that I called a cab put him in the cab and put his chair back to where he was sitting and when they came back to get him he was gone and the very first thing they did was come to ma and ask me where he was and I told them with a very straight face I had no idea.
This happened many many years ago and that was the one thing that I did in my life that I was very very proud of because I saved his life from certain death.
He live the rest of his life with his wife but he still wore all the socks he could because he still had that in his mind that someone was going to steal them.
So all of these horrible things have been happening for so many years I can’t really count but the way speak about this this is something new no way no how and that is a hard fact.
Reading that breaks my heart.
Sharon
~The BBQ~