so you keep doing this i want you to stop
now take your pills go get her dressed i just walked by room 22 and saw joyce slap the
resident in her face and take away her call button that's not good i think she's out
of line you should report this you like tattle on her there should be an
soc 341 every place i've worked at has them here it is remember this looks familiar remind
me again soc 341 is for mandated reporting you know what mandated means it means you
must you need to fill this out and report this you have 24 hours there's a question
in your mind about whether to report it you need to report it that's what my instructor
said but she could fire me she's been here longer you're legally protected in fact you'll
get in trouble if you don't report it let me ask you a question you have a grandmother
yes if it were her would you want this to go on no welfare and institution code section 1530
makes failure to report a crime it could be a simple slap punch or even aggressive yelling it
also includes more serious crimes like rape grand theft and even manslaughter but mandated reporting
also includes offenses that you might not consider criminal if a patient is being over-medicated
so they can't wander around or be a bother that is called chemical restraint
you are mandated to report that she was in post-acute care which means
she was in this facility to get better she seemed to get less and less conscious
every time we visited which we did a lot on january 1st i went in there and she was
completely unconscious her arm was hooked over the wheelchair's handle like this and
she had an uncompletely uneaten lunch right in front of her and she was just unconscious and
i tried to wake her and i tried to wake her and she could kind of look up at me a little
bit but i was so shocked that she was unrousable that i said we have to call an
ambulance she has to go to an emergency room and after what seemed like an eon an ambulance
was finally called and the ambulance driver even told me her oxygen was turned way down below
her prescription which made no sense to me and we you know jumped in the ambulance and went to the
emergency room and my mom died six days later but you just don't chemically restrain somebody
just to shut them up just arbitrarily go in there give them an injection of something or a pill or
something just to calm them down that's not right that's a form of abuse that's a form of
restraint and that needs to be reported what must be reported is any type of abuse it can
be physical it can be mental it could be sexual it could be neglect it could be isolation anything
that you know is wrong needs to be reported any crime that you imagine happening out on the
street happens in a nursing home and i know people don't want to believe that but rape murders
assaults we've seen staff use things like bed sheets towels gait belts used for physical therapy
turned backwards and used as a restraint to hold somebody into their chair if somebody is locked
in their room they're not going to be able to get out in a fire staff is not going to know when they
need medical assistance in the middle of the night we're taking vulnerable people and putting them in
an even worse situation it's absolutely deplorable it's unacceptable and it's illegal the very first
case i handled was a case where a staff member at a facility had reported that an unknown woman
had visited a woman who doesn't get any visitors immediately showed up with a notary and with two
friends and had this woman sign away her her power of attorney and it was all brought to life because
of one nurse who did the right thing and called us and said i don't something doesn't seem right
here because this woman doesn't even know her grandson's name and yet she's receiving visitors
that she doesn't that we've never seen before and she's signing paperwork when she
does no business signing paperwork and that's all we needed to be able to go in
and try and see if there was something wrong our office worked a case where an
individual who was diagnosed with dementia was in a long-term care facility and
while changing and providing personal care acna took video of him naked from the waist
down and posted that video to social media another caregiver could be heard in the video
asking if they were going to delete the video so that the caregiver had knowledge that a video
was taken and didn't stop it and did not report it the post appeared strictly to humiliate and demean
the individual as just an opportunity to laugh at them for being vulnerable and weak a certified
nursing assistant noticed that there were rats in the facility where he was working and actually
saw one of the rats in the bed of the patients so anything unusual like that that you know
just in your heart stands out as something that isn't right is something that you
really should report to the authorities if you are working in a long-term care facility
whether you're the administrator the housekeeper the janitor the nurse you are responsible for
mandated reporting soc 341 is the form that the state of california produces and it's basically a
fill in the blank you put your name you put where you work and you put what happened that makes
you think that there is something bad going on so reporting abuse is required by law and when
you fill out this form and you submit it to the proper authorities that's your documentation that
you reported it in a timely manner and the more information included on an soc form the better
neglect is another reportable crime if you know that a patient is being neglected has ulcers or
sores that aren't being treated if they are openly in pain and no one is helping them or that they
are very sick and not being taken to the hospital all are reportable offenses lovely
funny kind and always give give gift she occasionally would say take some of my money
buy them some goodies you know bring them some stuff because everyone's been so nice to me but
lo and behold all this was going on and we had no clue the family visited frequently very involved
somehow she got an infection on her hill and we knew that but we also knew that they
were taking care of all of that you know changing the wound and putting medication and
all that stuff no one told us that was going on gangrene build up infection buildup
until the doctor we we called him and he's the one who said no no this needs to be taken
care of like a week ago it was so bad that they insisted that the facility transfer their
mom to the hospital her foot was gangrenous they had to remove a portion of her foot
if they had told us we would have been on top of it you know she's my mom when the wound
became gangrenous and odorous that would have been the time to contact the doctor to look at was
hospitalization necessary because no one reported this medical neglect karena's mom died you know
i had hope that i would shoot she would wake up if the people that are there that are the eyes
and the ears for the patients the workers if they don't report it we don't know the crimes occur and
a lot of times the victims either can't tell us or are too scared to tell us pretend that they're
that's your mom or your sister your dad your uncle you see something going on something is wrong
just say something about it but i'm not her boss and she has seniority it doesn't matter she
can be your supervisor or the president you're protected i'm sure someone else will report her
what are you talking about nothing how's it going are you reporting something she's talking about
reporting her crazy neighbors to the police right you need to get mr andrews back in his room that was awkward thanks lyla nice safe but
it's discovered you knew this was happening and didn't report it you could be in trouble
like criminally charged is your responsibility so if you don't report we will prosecute you and
it sounds really harsh but it's our job and it's your job to report it can be punishable up to
six months in jail or a thousand dollar fine and in addition to that if you do have any kind
of medical license you'll probably lose that however if that failure to report results in the
death it could be up to a year in county jail a five thousand dollar fine or both one of the
cases actually involved a cna a certified nurse assistant who witnessed sexual abuse who saw her
friend a co-worker actually touching a patient that was under both of their care and rather than
reporting it she chose to stay silent another co-worker actually ended up reporting it and she
mentioned that this person was a witness there the person who did not report ended up getting charged
with failure to report she's no longer practicing as a certified nursing assistant and she ended up
getting criminally charged and convicted for that if someone fails to report what happens is
that whatever the abuse that is taking place is happening over and over and over again a gentleman
started to act out sexually he became very verbally making comments a little handsy with
people they didn't do anything they didn't report didn't keep an eye on him and less than
a week later he raped one of the other patients and if they would have reported him the first time
if they would have taken action that poor woman didn't have to be a victim of rape as a special
agent for the state of california don't be afraid of retaliation we will be there to protect you
so it can be really scary to report a co-worker or sometimes even a supervisor or a resident
or to feel like something that you're saying is going to make your facility look bad or that
management might be upset with you we've had cases where administrators or nurses have told
people under them uh do don't report anything they can't do that that does not absolve you of
your requirement to to report sometimes being a mandated reporter means you have to be brave
because you might have to make a report that includes one of your colleagues
that may include your supervisor and that's hard to do but it's the
right thing to do and it's the law so you can call it in and give the information
and you don't have to give your name or your personal information so you can stay anonymous if
you wanted to put like a first name and a phone number and you could make up that first name
it's okay if you want to be sally that's fine so i could call sally and they'd get additional
information regarding that incident that only sally might know if you have any suspicion or you
don't know if it is abuse just report it we rely on your eyes and ears you do not need
to investigate it if you see something and you're not really sure what you saw is
really abuse but it didn't fit right with you it's better to be safe than sorry it's not
your duty to debate it within yourself or to debate it with another employee if you see
something your responsibility is to report it my mom was so funny and brilliant and sharp
she had no dementia symptoms or memory issues or anything all the way to the end until she got
into that place and she was a different person her personality changed it was barely as if she
could recognize us or dial our phone number she even said and i didn't know that this was i
thought it was paranoid she called me one time and said she thought they were taking her call button
away and we thought that's silly they wouldn't take your call button away to ask for help clearly
she was over drugged i just wish somebody would have reported it my mom was a nurse and she
spent her whole life taking care of people and when she needed a nurse to
take care of her they didn't i haven't convinced you i'm gonna fill it out now good girl your grandma would be proud i'll
keep an eye on things we can fill it out together if you have a question i might be
able to answer it for you that would be great pretend it's your mother there are night shift
people day shift people nurses assistants they're all in there all the time they know what's going
on share share anything that you see show concern you know you feel like a janitor sometimes you
feel like a babysitter but it's a sacred position we're trust the families are trusting you they
need you to report even if it feels risky to you dns if you have any doubt whether
you should report report yes if you see something please report it you
must report report you must report report you must report report report report
please report you could save a life report it's the law you