It does not take a hurricane to put nursing home residents at risk when disaster strikes, according to an article on the Standard-Examiner website.
Around the country, facilities have been caught unprepared for mundane emergencies, according to an examination of federal inspection records.
Those homes rarely face severe reprimands, records show, even when inspectors identify repeated lapses. In some cases, nursing homes failed to prepare for basic contingencies.
For instance, last May, inspectors found that an El Paso, Texas, nursing home had no plan for how to bring wheelchair-dependent people down the stairs in case of an evacuation.
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