Cameras should be allowed in nursing homes, and nursing home owners should be required to carry liability insurance and keep better records, several residents told a state representative at a legislative hearing on Monday.
Another woman said she wished she had broken the rules and installed a camera. The nursing home where her mother stayed didn’t allow it. In December her mother, 83, ended up with a bruise on her forehead; when Ammer took her mother to a hospital, it was determined her mother also had suffered a broken neck, Ammer said.
“We deserve to know what happened to her,” Ammer said.
A man said his 43-year-old son was sexually assaulted and beaten in a nursing home and he was given the wrong drug.
The legislator who hosted the hearing on nursing home care as part of Senior Day activities at the state Capitol, said he was shocked at what he heard.
The executive director of the state’s association of health care providers said her organization has surveyed residents and said most are opposed to cameras in their rooms. Some nursing homes in the state have cameras in common areas, she said. “The camera doesn’t protect the resident at all,” she said. “If a camera protected individuals, we wouldn’t be having robberies at QuikTrips and places like that.” For more, read the story.
Robert W. Carter, Jr. is a Virginia attorney whose law practice is dedicated to protecting the rights of the victims of nursing home and assisted living neglect and abuse in Richmond, Roanoke, Norfolk, Lynchburg, Danville, Charlottesville, and across Virginia.
