Articles Posted in Resident Safety

Families across Maryland increasingly rely on cameras to protect loved ones living in nursing homes. The Maryland Department of Health now provides formal guidance on electronic monitoring in long-term care facilities, confirming that residents and their representatives may install audio or video devices in residents’ rooms with proper consent. As more families use this option, surveillance footage plays a larger role in exposing neglect, documenting patterns of abuse, and supporting legal action when residents suffer preventable harm.

Video evidence cannot solve every problem in a nursing facility, yet it allows families to verify concerns that often remain hidden behind closed doors. In an environment where understaffing, medication errors, falls, and improper supervision continue to pose risks, surveillance footage helps investigators and attorneys build clearer timelines and stronger cases.

This structure gives families a practical way to observe care when they cannot visit daily. Cameras capture interactions with staff, medication administration, mobility assistance, and the general environment inside the resident’s living space. When concerns arise, the footage can confirm what actually occurred rather than leaving everything to speculation.

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When we send our loved ones to nursing homes, we expect them to be taken care of by properly licensed, professionally trained, and caring staff members. After all, many of our elders and loved ones have complex health needs that require regular attention and care that nursing home staff members are specifically trained and equipped to address. When these facilities fail to conduct reasonable diligence into ensuring the quality of their staff, however, this lack of care can potentially result in injury to our loved ones.

According to a recent news report, a recent government investigation into issues surrounding nursing homes uncovered a registered nurse working while her license was suspended. The woman was arraigned recently on felony charges after the investigation found that she tampered with vials and syringes containing substances she knew were intended for patients who required pain relief in the critical care unit. She removed the original substances from the vials and syringes, replaced them with another liquid, and returned the containers. The incident remains under investigation, but officials noted that the woman had a previous criminal history while working as a nurse as well.

Unfortunately, Maryland is no stranger to similar incidents, especially in nursing homes. Long-term care facilities have a responsibility both to their residents and to the community to exercise reasonable diligence when hiring professional staff to care for vulnerable and elderly residents. When a facility fails to do so, its lack of care could constitute negligence. When the nursing home fails to protect its residents as the first line of defense when hiring staff, it could be held responsible for any subsequent injury that takes place.

One of the reasons that Maryland nursing home abuse and neglect are so horrible is because they can fly under the radar for so long. Nursing home residents who are being abused or neglected may be cognitively impaired and not even understand what is happening to them, or have trouble letting other people know. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated this problem, making it even harder for Maryland nursing home abuse and neglect to be identified and investigated.

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit nursing homes particularly hard, and many of them are hot-spots for the virus, with the unfortunate combination of group living and COVID-vulnerable residents. Extra precautions have been taken in many to prevent the spread of infection within the facilities, or from the facilities to the surrounding area. This led to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to halt on-site visits and surveys to state-run nursing homes, and, in general, investigators and those tasked with monitoring the facilities have not been able to enter nursing homes to respond to complaints.

Additionally, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many nursing homes have restricted the visiting of residents. Before, family members played an important role in spotting nursing home abuse and neglect—they might notice red flags before anyone else. If they suspected that their loved one was being mishandled, not being given their medicine, or being underfed, they were able to report that concern or ask their loved one about it. But now, with COVID-19 concerns and restricted visiting hours and opportunities, family members may not be able to play this important role, and abuse and neglect might go unseen.

When someone is searching for a Maryland nursing home to place a loved one, it’s likely that a facility’s status as for-profit or non-profit is not high on the list of priorities. Typically, the difficult decision of where to place a loved one who needs part- or full-time care is made based on location, price, and the services offered. Many families may not even think to look into the for- or non-profit status of the facility, instead prioritizing finding a place nearby where their loved one feels safe, or perhaps even knows people already there.

However, a recent study might make Maryland families rethink their priorities when searching for a nursing home. According to the study, senior residents in for-profit nursing homes are almost two times as likely to have health problems linked to poor care, compared to those living in non-profit  homes. Additionally, among residents studied at for-profit homes, there were more clinical signs of neglect, such as dehydration in clients with feeding tubes, broken catheters, bedsores, and improperly managed medications.

The leading researcher in charge of the study believes the results show that more oversight is needed in nursing homes, especially for-profit homes. However, the U.S. government is currently considering rolling back existing regulations meant to protect nursing home residents. The existing regulations were put into place to improve resident safety and well-being, to prevent nursing home neglect and abuse, and to improve reporting systems when neglect and abuse do happen. Tragically, the last part is very important—incidents of nursing home abuse and neglect often go unreported, as residents may either be too frail and ill to understand what is happening to them, or may fear retaliation if they report.