Chapter 6 weekly blog

The history of nursing homes varies with three organisational types,proprietary private for profit, voluntary private nonprofit and public tax supported and nonprofit.the earliest institutional form of care for the elderly, mentally or physically ill or handicapped and other dependent persons in America was the variously termed county home, poorhouse, poor farm, or almshouse. Today the best quality nursing home care tend to be provided in retirement communities or homes for the aged that provide a range of care levels, including supportive living in houses and apartments as well as skilled nursing care units. When I was young nursing homes were always talked about as a negative place to be. Personally I pray that I am able to take care of myself when I get up in age because the last place I would want to be is in a nursing home. On the other hand if I'm not able to take care of myself I would not want to be a burden on my children and their family. A recent thorough study of nursing home state inspection reports for 1998(Harrington et al.,2001) found that investor- owned nursing homes averaged 46.5 percent more deficiency citations overall than nonprofits and 43.0 percent more than public facilities. Investor owned nursing homes deliver lower quality care than do nonprofit or public facilities. I was sitting thinking about all of the people that are in nursing homes with serious illness, and I'm wondering are they being taking care of properly. The first thing that comes to my mind is that if your family members don't have patients with you, how will a stranger.

Reference:

Social work in the health field:  A Care Perspective second edition Lois A. Fort Cowles