If you have someone living in a Long Term Care facility (nursing home), do you know their Rights? If not here is list of some of their rights that he or she has. Families have rights also. Just because the DON or ED ( Nursing Home Adminsitrator) calls to tell you your loved one has to move to another room so they can get admission doesn't mean you have to agree.
• The Resident has the right to be free of unnecessary physical or chemical restraints. Vests, hand mitts, seat belts and other physical restraints, and antipsychotic drugs, sedatives, and other chemical restraints are impermissible, except when authorized by a physician, in writing, for a specified period of time.
• Resident has the right to contact the physician responsible for the resident's care. Residents' rights provide the resident the right to participate in care planning meetings
• Resident has the right to know when there is a change in the resident's treatment, the facility must inform the resident and the resident's physician, legal representative or interested family member.
• The Resident has the right to gain access to all his or her records within one business day, and a right to copies of those records at a cost that is reasonable in that community. The facility must explain how to examine these records, or how to transfer the authority to obtain records to another person.
• The Resident has the right to receive a written description of his or her legal rights, explaining state laws regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney for healthcare and other advance directives, along with the facility's policy on carrying out these directives.
• The Resident at the time of admission and during the stay must be fully informed of the services available in the facility and of all related charges. Nursing homes may charge for services and items in addition to the basic daily rate, but only if they already have disclosed which services and items will incur an additional charge, and how much that charge will be.
• The Resident has a right to privacy. Which is a right that extends to all aspects of care, including care for personal needs, visits with family and friends, and communication with others through telephone and mail? Residents thus must have areas for receiving private calls or visitors so that no one may intrude and to preserve the privacy of their roommates.
• Residents have the right to share a room with a spouse, gather with other residents without staff present, and meet state and local nursing home ombudsperson or any other agency representatives. They may leave the nursing home, or belong to any church or social group. Within the home, residents have the right to manage their own financial affairs, free of any requirement that they deposit personal funds with the facility.
• Residents have the right to get up and go to bed when they choose, eat a variety of snacks outside meal times, decide what to wear, choose activities, and decide how to spend their time. The nursing home must offer a choice at main meals, because individual tastes and needs vary. Residents, not staff, determine their hours of sleep and visits to the bathroom. Residents may self-administer medication if they are deemed competent to do so.
• The Resident may bring personal possessions to the nursing home such as clothing, furnishings and jewelry. Residents may expect staff to take responsibility for assisting in the protection of items or locating lost items, and should inquire about facility policies for replacing missing items. Residents should expect kind, courteous, and professional behavior from staff. Staff should treat residents like adults.
• The Resident has the right to refuse being moved to a different room, a different nursing home, a hospital, back home or anywhere else without advance notice, an opportunity for appeal and a showing that such a move is in the best interest of the resident or necessary for the health of other nursing home residents.
• The Resident has the right to be free of interference, coercion, discrimination, and reprisal in exercising his or her rights. Being assertive and identifying problems usually brings good results, and nursing homes have a responsibility not only to assist residents in raising individual concerns, but also to respond promptly to those concerns.
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