Ohio Home Heathcare Lacks Oversight

By Heather Inglis

As our grandparents and parents get older, hiring a home health care provider seems like a fitting option to keep loved ones in their homes, given their circumstance. They can have all the same benefits as living in a nursing home without having to restrict their freedom or alter their lifestyle. Perfect, right?

Or is it?

According to the National Council on Aging approximately one in 10 Americans will face some form of elder abuse. While the NCOA also says 90% of that abuse occurs while in the care of family and friends, abuse is also known to happen while in the care of home health providers.

Some families assume they’ll get the same quality of care as they would from a registered nurse or others who work in a hospital or nursing home, but that isn’t always the case.

Lara Tebeuo, a home health caregiver and STNA at Stow Glen Retirement Village, has worked for three different home health care facilities and said that the kind of care patients gets varies. Some required background checks, while another facility didn’t even ask Tebeuo for her background information.

Tebeuo also said some facilities don’t even require proper training for its home health care providers.

“What tends to happen is that the people that are being taken care of or their family members will say, ‘we do not want this person coming anymore because they don’t know what they’re doing,’ and they feel uncomfortable,” she said.  “They don’t have that compassionate spirit and they don’t know what they’re supposed to do they just sit there and wait for the person to tell them what to do.”

[pullquote]”We don’t always know everything that happens at the home.”[/pullquote]

And it’s not just lack of education that can be considered a form of neglect or abuse. The National Center on Elder Abuse also cites physical abuse, which causes pain or injury; emotional abuse, which causes anguish or distress; sexual abuse, which involves non-consensual sexual acts between the patient and caregiver; exploitation, which involves the assets of the elder; and abandonment, which is the desertion of the elder while in the provider’s care.

Exploitation, says Sally Smith, a supervisor at Adult Protective Services, while involving money, can be detrimental to an elder’s health as well.

“[Neglect against the elderly] can impact their health in various ways,” she says. “If they have money stolen from them, studies have shown that the victims of one of these crimes have often had shorter lifespan because of stress. Or if their money’s stolen they can’t afford their medications. So it’s not just single-faceted, it also impacts the quality of life.”

Smith also says there are ways to avoid abuse in the home health care system. The first piece of advice she gives to families is to be selective with who they have coming to their home.

“I encourage people to research it, just as if you were putting your child in a daycare facility,” Smith says. “We would encourage folks to research the people they’re having come into their home.”

Researching the facilities and the caretakers it hires can be as easy as a Google search. Checking to see if the facility requires proper certification and background checks are good places to start when finding a home health care provider.

Smith also encourages families to file lawsuits if any abuse or neglect does occur. Filing a lawsuit against the provider can sometimes ensure a caregiver can no longer work in the system because they will have a criminal record.

“If there are criminal charges filed and this person is found to be guilty they certainly would have a criminal record,” she says. “It’s important that if there’s a concern that charges get filed and we would encourage families to press charges against the provider.”

This is especially helpful considering there aren’t always many witnesses to home health care abuse. Unlike nursing homes, there aren’t cameras or other people constantly around, so ensuring abuse or neglect gets handled properly is important.

Tebeuo agrees and has witnessed it firsthand.

“We don’t always know everything that happens at the home. The stories I’ve heard have taken place at the actual nursing home and there were more witnesses there or there are witnesses, so the story comes out into the light,” Tebeuo says. “Whereas things that may happen in someone’s home we may never even know about. A lot of people who do home health care do it for the paycheck, they’re not necessarily doing it because they want to help and care for an individual. it’s really sad but unfortunately that’s how it is.”

There are providers in the home health care system who do care, however. Tebeuo says she’s very close with the three patients she works with right now.
“I have very close relationships with all the clients I have right now—they’re like family,” she says. “They count on me as their main caregiver next to their spouse, if they have a spouse. The relationship gets much closer than just caregiver and client.”

REPORTER RACHEL GODIN
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: HOME HEALTHCARE LACKS OVERSIGHT