Housekeeping is crucial in nursing homes. A facility should have enough staff to clean bedding, furniture, floors and other resident areas regularly in order to better ensure that residents are healthy. However, not all nursing homes do this.
The following are three signs of unhygienic nursing homes that should not be ignored.
Poor personal hygiene
You should be alarmed if the residents of a facility have dirty clothes, unkempt hair, body odor and dirty nails, among other disheveled general appearances. If this is what you spot when looking for a facility for a loved one, you may need to keep looking. If you notice this when visiting a loved one, raise the matter or consider other options.
Dirty communal areas
If you go to a facility’s communal area, such as the bathroom or dining room, and notice spills, dirty walls/floors/tables/chairs, a heavy smell of urine, overflowing trash, improperly disposed of medical waste and so on, you should be concerned. This proves the existence of germs in the facility, increasing the risk of illnesses.
Dirty rooms
A nursing facility must clean residents’ rooms, change their bed linens and clean their items. A dirty room is a sign of a neglected facility.
Why does this happen?
Different factors can contribute to an unclean nursing home, with the common ones being understaffing and poor training. A facility with an unbalanced patient-to-staff ratio is likely to be unhygienic. For example, a resident may be forced to stay with a soiled diaper longer than acceptable because their caregiver is attending to another resident.
Further, housekeepers who are not properly trained on how to sweep, mop, disinfect or sanitize surfaces or how often to clean surfaces can cause a facility to be unclean.
If your loved one has contracted an illness in a nursing home care facility due to poor hygiene, get more information to protect their rights.
