Jul 27, 2016 2 min read

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale issued a report this week on oversight of nursing homes in Pennsylvania, and some of the findings were deplorable.

For instance, DePasquale said the Pennsylvania Department of Health isn’t doing enough to make sure minimum staffing standards are being met at the 700 nursing homes across the state.

According to an Associated Press report, the state requires nursing home patients to receive 2.7 hours of direct nursing care daily, but the audit found lax enforcement of that standard, which the AG’s office believes is still too low, and nursing homes that failed to comply with the regulation were not always cited.

Even more troubling is the fact the Health Department was not accepting anonymous public complaints about nursing home care for three years. A report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said the practice of investigating anonymous tips was halted by the Corbett administration. In his report, DePasquale said he believed that move was intended to “silence critics.” We don’t doubt it.

Of course, Gov. Tom Corbett is now gone, and the Wolf adminstration is in charge. As such, there seem to be changes afoot, and for the good. DePasquale said Health Secretary Karen Murphy invited his audit, which began Jan. 1, 2014, and has been making changes in response, including a return to investigations of anonymous complaints last year.

The focus now should be on cracking down on nursing homes that aren’t providing sufficient staffing to ensure quality care for their residents. It’s an unfortunate fact in this country that a person’s wealth still determines to some degree the quality of late-life care they will receive, but there must be standards – enforced standards – that guarantee all patients’ basic needs are being met.