A D.C. man in a wheelchair says nurses and aides are sleeping on the job when they’re supposed to be keeping him safe. He and advocates are sounding the alarm about what they call a growing risk affecting some of the District’s most vulnerable residents.
Damon Brooks knows the value of a good team. He makes his living covering athletes as a writer for the Monumental Sports Network. A team mentality is even more important to him when he’s off the job. Thirteen years ago, a tragic wrestling accident with a friend left him a paraplegic.
Brooks depends on nurses and aides throughout the day, managed through the city’s Elderly and Persons with Physical Disabilities program funded by Medicaid. The program allows him to remain in his own home.
Brooks describes his morning nurse as “outstanding” and “like a mother” to him. She helps him with everyday tasks, checks his vitals and gets him ready for work and for bed.
A different team is supposed to monitor him overnight. That’s when he said things get harder.
“Every night since I’ve unfortunately had this accident, I’ve had employees sleeping, snoring on the job, neglecting me. Sometimes I’ve been left sitting in wet chucks,” he said, referring to disposable bed pads. “Sometimes I have been just neglected to use the bathroom. And it’s been very difficult for me.”
Brooks said his nurses and aides sleep so often when they should be taking care of him that he installed cameras around his apartment in plain sight. He says he has hours of footage of employees appearing to sleep through the night.
“They’re supposed to be re-positioning me, catheterizing me on time. They’re not supposed to sleeping and snoring, and they’re supposed to be attentive to my needs. But sadly, that hasn’t been the case,” he said.
Brooks said he’s flagged the problem for years.
“I’ve sent pictures, I’ve sent emails to the nursing agency, the deputy mayor, council members. I’ve done multiple things to try to get assistance,” he said.
But he said the problem has only gotten worse. News4 asked him if he thinks he would be taken care of in case of an emergency overnight.
“Truthfully, I don’t know,” he said.
In the past few weeks, he said he’s had nurses and aides simply not show up for the overnight shift, leaving his mom to help him.
“I won’t lie – I’ve cried several nights. I have cried multiple, multiple mornings. It’s a very depressing situation,” he said.
Reports of aides showing up with ‘blankets, pillow and hair rollers’
Advocates also have raised concerns about nurses and aides asleep on the job.
“This is a very serious problem, of aides showing up with no intention to work,” said Holly Eaton, senior attorney for the D.C. Office of the Long-Term Care Ombudsman. She spoke at a D.C. Council roundtable discussion on long-term care.
“Many of my clients report and have photos of aides arriving for the overnight shift – midnight to 8 a.m. – with blankets, pillows and hair rollers, clearly intending to sleep,” Eaton continued.
Amid a shortage of personal care aides, or PCAs, home health agencies allow their employees to avoid what the aides consider more difficult cases because agencies worry they’ll quit, Eaton said.
“If the beneficiary is able to articulate his needs, ask for assistance and oversee what the PCAs are doing, the aides do not want to return to that job because they object to being told what to do and don’t like being watched,” she said.
Brooks said aides should do the jobs they’re contracted to do.
“If you know you signed up for the night shift, you go to sleep during the day. We all make sacrifices day in and day out. Just because it’s a night shift doesn’t mean you have the ability or the right to sleep,” he said.
‘We would look at that as fraud’
D.C.’s Department of Health Care Finance, which oversees the program for the city, said in an email to the News4 I-Team: “DHCF expects that all nurses or personal care aides are consistently available to deliver services as needed, safely and appropriately, as needed, and in accordance with a Medicaid beneficiary’s plan of care.”
The agency can and should do more, said Mark Miller with the D.C. Office of the Long-Term Care Ombudsman.
“They have the ultimate oversight and sanctioning and enforcement authority,” he said.
Every time an overnight aide closes their eyes, they are essentially stealing from taxpayers, he said.
“You’re taking taxpayer dollars and not providing the service that you’ve contracted to provide. And there’s really no other way to capture that. I mean, we would look at that as fraud. We also would look at that as potential neglect or abuse,” he said.
News4 asked Miller how big he believes the problem is.
“It’s hard to know because I think some of it is unreported. Some people, like I said, do not want to kind of rock the boat because they’re afraid then they won’t get any aides in the evening or on weekends,” he said.
Brooks said he doesn’t have that fear and has reported problems to his case manager, the nursing agencies and the city.
News4 asked him how many nurses he thought he’d had.
“Over 40 with this particular nursing agency,” he replied.
Advocates the I-Team spoke with said there needs to be more oversight and more incentives for nurses and aides to work overnight and weekend shifts. We reached out to the agencies Brooks has used and asked about complaints about sleeping. We did not hear back.
The I-Team found a complaint about sleeping that was filed in 2023 regarding an agency Brooks used in the past. As a result of an inspection, the agency said it gave employees a verbal warning and retrained them on its policy on sleeping.
Brooks said he worries his reputation for accountability is scaring away the help he needs. But he said his fight is about more than himself.
“I’m just really worried about others because if others are subjected to this, that means we may have casualties, and that’s something I really want to prevent from occurring,” he said.
Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.
from Local – NBC4 Washington https://ift.tt/mWdvi7A
0 Comments