Understaffing Nursing Home

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The Effects of Understaffing in Nursing Homes
Since this is the era of baby boomers, there are abundant nursing homes came into market place in recent decades in order to meet the demands of elderly care. Nursing homes provide elderly care for those who can’t afford to stay in hospitals for long periods of time and also for those who can’t be cared or treated at homes. Furthermore, some nursing homes operate as hospitals by possessing skilled nursing unit along with physical and occupational therapy units in the same facility. This makes them a convenient place for many elderly residents to live and receive adequate care day by day. However, in recent years many nursing homes are facing understaffing issues. Thus, understaffing of nursing homes indirectly expose the patients to risk of infection, malnutrition and abuse and neglect.
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Nursing assistants assist residents with bathing and toileting in a regular basis to promote adequate hygeine. Nurses do frequent check on resident’s hygiene and make sure the residents are getting proper hygiene care on times. Immobile or bed-ridden patients receive bed bath or sponge bath for regular body washing and bedpan and urinals offered for defecating and urinating. Also, its important to reposition bed ridden patient every two hours to prevent bed sores. Some residents, has wounds that needed to be monitoring and changing dressing to prevent infection on the wound site. During understaffing, these cares are interrupted and will lead to infections. Subsequently, the patients suffer from the new infection when they are already dealing with something