San Francisco, CA – Calling for an overhaul in the Department of Public Health — the agency responsible for oversight of California’s nursing homes — California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) released a white paper that it says summarizes major problems in long term care in California, and offering suggestions as to what needs to be done to improve nursing home and residential care for elders and persons with disabilities.
The paper, titled “California’s Broken Long Term Care System,” outlines problems in oversight, enforcement, and funding in nursing homes, residential care, home and community-based services, and elder abuse prevention and prosecution.
In a November 3 email of the CANHR newsletter, CANHR listed the following issues:
- A need for replacing the leadership at the Department of Public Health and the Center for Health Care Quality with “visionary consumer protection leaders who will reform the Department and directly address a crisis in nursing home care that residents face.”
- The need for funding for the Department of Social Services that is adequate to meaningfully inspect and oversee California’s 7,200+ residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFEs), which house more than 152,000 frail elders, and oversight of 66,000+ other facilities in California.
- Increase availability and access to cost-saving home and community-based alternatives for those who do not wish to die in a nursing home.
- Increase remedies for victims of residents’ rights violations and elder abuse, including a private right of action.
CANHR called on the newly elected Governor, Gavin Newsom, and legislators “to address this crisis in long term care and to create new models of care where the health and safety of residents takes priority and where elder abuse becomes a distant memory.”
CLICK HERE to read the report.