Not all state health and safety violations tell the true story of how nursing homes operate

Pkd2016, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The story below is a hard news story written during a news writing and reporting class. Nursing homes within the Hampton Roads area have a large number of health and safety violations. However, it is not as easy to avoid violations as one might think.

HAMPTON, VA- Telling the difference between good and bad senior living facilities in Hampton cannot be done at first glance. Virginia is ranked 11 out of 51 states for having the highest numbers of nursing home violations, according to a May 2019 report released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Even though the CMS puts Virginia high on the list, receiving violations is inevitable for some Hampton Roads nursing homes despite their administrators’ best efforts to properly run a facility.

“I don’t know a lot of people who haven’t had violations because they come out looking for something,” said administrator at Golden Years Assisted Living Facility Robin Forrest.

Golden Years Assisted Living Facility has received less than six complaint-related violations since 2016, according to the Virginia Department of Social Services. Complaint-related violations are any kind of violations that are not reported or filed by state inspectors but by residents, residents’ family members or random visitors.

Even though the facility is in good standing with the state, avoiding health and safety violations is not a simple task for Forrest. Within the facility, residents do not always report when things are broken in their rooms. Broken items in a resident’s room can be listed as a violation.

“They can pull on something and it breaks,” Forrest said. “If they don’t let us know, we don’t know to fix it and then they can walk right in a find it and we get cited for it.”

Staff at Golden Years Assisted Living Facility believe that its family-like atmosphere set it apart from other senior care locations.

“While it is still a facility we try to make it feel as much like home as we can,” said office manager at Golden Years Assisted Living Facility Max Denton.

Not all facilities in the Hampton Roads area have good state reports. Sentara Nursing Center Hampton had 11 violations during a March 2019 inspection, according to data in the CMS’s report. Despite the facilities high number of violations, its atmosphere is clean and welcoming.

Sentara Nursing Center Hampton is a rehabilitation center and long term care facility. Many of the facility’s violations were related to staff members not being mindful of each residents’ special needs, according to data used in the CMS’s report. Even with 11 violations, not all Sentara residents feel as though their needs are being overlooked.

“The staff is very good here,” said Sentara Nursing Center Hampton resident Richard Fluker. “I’ve been in here since May and they’ve taken well care of me.”

The facility relies on daily documentation due to some resident’s refusal to receive care that is necessary for their day-to-day routine. The documentation helps workers protect themselves from potential violations during yearly state inspections.

“With the incontinence of some of the people it’s hard to keep nursing homes tip top,” said licensed nurse practitioner at Sentara Nursing Hampton Shanitra Scott. “As long as we have something that can show look I offered and they refused, then we kind of cover ourselves.”

Scott and other staff members encourage residents to bathe and do necessary daily

activities. However, staff members do not force residents to do activities unless they are refusing to do something that is essential to their care routines. Refusal of care is common for those within the facility, according to Scott.

“We document every day,” Scott said. “Typically it’s only by exception, which means if something different goes on like a change of condition, a fall or out of the ordinary behavior where they’re refusing things that’s pertinent to their care.”

Bethel Helping Hands is another local senior living facility with low complaint- related violations, according to the Virginia Department of Social Services. All three facilities realize violations are difficult to avoid, but make resident care and safety a priority.

Strict state regulations mean many overseers are involved in giving facilities the green light for operation. Combining strict regulations with uncooperative residents make passing yearly inspections without any violations difficult.

I’m a real stickler when it comes to their needs and their care,” said Bethel Helping Hands administrator Marva Sanders. “The most difficult part about this job is not the patients; it’s the regulations.”