Nursing Home Abuse

A congressional report which was released in July stated that the amount of abuse occurring in nursing homes in our nation is increasing dramatically. Physical, Sexual and verbal abuse is occurring and something needs to be done to stop it. “Thirty percent of nursing homes in the United States---5,283 facilities---were cited for almost 9,000 instances of abuse over a recent two-year period (Special Investigations Division of the House Government Reform Committee).

Reading this article on nursing home abuse really opened my eyes up to a whole new problem in our world. Before reading this article, I was aware of the abuse that goes on in nursing homes, but I had no idea that it occurred so frequently and seriously. My grandmother used to work in a nursing home and told me all about the different types of abuse that would happen. She didn’t know if was going on until one day she realized it when the nurses would turn off all the lights earlier than supposed to, so that they wouldn’t have to take the elderly to the bathroom or change them. Therefore, in the morning, they would have been sleeping in their own feces. After she became aware of this, she quit. I believe that people in our nation are not aware of this abuse. I believe that many people know that it goes on but there are a high number that do not even know of this kind of abuse nor how serious it is and can be. The articles gives a few examples of investigations into nursing home abuse and what they have found. One