According to national studies, the majority of nursing homes do not have sufficient staff to provide the basic care residents need to live safely and with dignity. Every nursing home is required to provide this level of care. Every person who goes to a nursing home has the right to this care.

We trust nursing homes to care for our most frail and vulnerable. We pay them millions of dollars a year to do this. Yet we do not require that they have sufficient staff to provide adequate care or a humane quality of life

This toolkit can help you make a difference. Send a message to your political leaders. Collect names on a petition. Tell your story about poor nursing home care.

Those of us concerned about nursing home residents know that there are widespread problems.  Too many residents in communities across the country do not receive appropriate care.  For instance, far too many people are confined to their beds or a chair because there is insufficient staff to help them walk around and participate in activities.  Too many people who could go to the bathroom with some assistance are forced to use a diaper because of insufficient staff.  Too many people suffer physically or emotionally because their nursing home is unable to provide the care and quality of life necessary to keep them at their optimum level of functioning, as federal law requires. 

As a result of this inadequate care, nursing home residents have high rates of painful and dangerous pressure sores, malnourishment and dehydration, depression and anxiety.  Too many residents receive the wrong medication, have to be hospitalized or die, not as a result of their condition but because they suffered neglect and abuse by the nursing home.  The time has come to put an end to widespread, unnecessary suffering.

The purpose of the toolkit is to help you and others in your community speak out in support of decent minimum staffing standards for nursing homes.  Study after study has indicated that sufficient staffing is key to quality of life and quality of care. Yet while we give nursing homes millions of dollars a year, and trust them with our most vulnerable loved one, we do not require that they maintain safe staffing levels.

It is time that our elected officials who sign off on payments to nursing homes sign on to hold them responsible for having safe staffing levels.  But they wont do that unless they hear from us – a lot of us – that this is an important issue. 

Feel free to copy and distribute the materials. If you have questions, please email richard@ltccc.org.

We would not say it is okay if a nursing home said they only had 100 beds, but they wanted to care for 150 residents.

We would not allow a nursing home to say it only has enough fuel to heat the rooms of 1/2 its residents.

Yet every day we allow nursing homes to have insufficient staff to care for their residents.

Where is the outrage?