90%+ of nursing homes hire criminals

That is sick.

Over 90 percent of nursing homes hire criminals

More than 90 percent of nursing homes hired employees with criminal convictions according to a new government report obtained by CBS News.

Government investigators ran background checks on all workers who were employed on June 1, 2009 at 260 nursing homes across the country. The results showed 92 percent of the facilities hired at least one employee with a criminal conviction.

The report, by the Inspector General for Health and Human Services, also says that at nearly half of the nursing homes, "five or more individuals" with criminal backgrounds were hired.

Investigators found seven registered sex offenders employed in five different nursing homes. Overall 43 percent of the criminal convictions were for property crimes such as "burglary, shoplifting, writing bad checks."

Forty-three states require nursing homes to conduct some kind of criminal background check. But, only ten states require both a state and FBI background check that would detect convictions in multiple states.

Need some reform there... because this is just very very sad.

reply to post by Vitchilo


Are these people causing a direct problem for these businesses? Because that is all they are you know is business..I know that there will be a percentage that will abuse the system again, but alot of people do want to better themselves. I know because personally I am one of the people that is in a category on your "list" of felonies. It involved another persons posessions and it occured when I was 18. I am now 32 and I feel that my past actions have been paid because I did my time and I paid my debt to society with community service. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of restitution that I had to pay.


I am stating this because this story directly has to do with my personal life. My girlfriend works at a local nursing home as a dedicated dietary technician(cook) and I know that they cannot keep enough people employed long enough to learn to wash dishes. The amount of people applying to these types of businesses are low. Also as stated I am a non violent felon that is about graduate a two year welding program at the local college.

Are you stating that felons do not deserve a chance to redeem themselves?

I would just like to say this -

Nanas and grandads love their grandkids - and a lot of those kids are crims.

Maybe these people would like a new start - looking after old people.

And the old people will love young people around them. So, regardless, let's give these people a break.

I am not trolling your thread. It is just that I feel that felons that have to obide by the constitutional laws, and are punished by such laws, and pay their dues to society for breaking these laws, then we should still be protected under these laws for proper employment in the workplace. Not just working at Mcdonlalds.

I personally feel that my constitutional rights that have been taken from me are unjust because I paid my debt to society and I have not been in any trouble in years. I have proven the fact that I want to better mysel and my family and such regulation only hurts the people that want to contribute to society again. This in turns puts these felons in a situation where the jobs are not available and their troubles only continue to degrade.

Thank you for letting me tell of my worries of such regulations.

Thank you, LJ01

lol this has nothing really to do with the body of your post, but i just had a chuckle at this since it is the first time i have noticed it, and i am sure i am not the first one by far to have...

'CBS' = C BS (See Bull #)

What should be denoted is, and really, what's important, what were those convictions? Are we talking people who had a DUI? Are we talking people who ran red lights? Are we talking sexual offenses? Are we talking people who committed thefts?

Yea I agree that our nursing homes should do a better job background checking employees. I spent a little time working in a nursing home as a CNA, I did it because a friend of mine's mom had a massive stroke and was completely debilitated. She could only move her eyes and one index finger. The reason I went to work there was because her son went off the deep end and was so drugged out he didn't even care that she was lying in a nursing home.

At one point the nursing home hired this dirt bag, who went in and raped this woman. I don't know if he had had other sex crime convictions, but this guy was obviously slime. A thorough background check on this A hole might have saved that poor woman from being raped like that.

This is not surprising, one of the problems is that most of the nursing homes are now owned by investors and the only concern is their bottom line.

I retired in 2000 as an accountant and went back to school to become a CNA, my training is for Hospice and Alzheimer's patients, I have never worked in a nursing home, private home care only. I have worked for only one agency and they did an extensive background check and am bonded with them. It took about three weeks before I was hired. I also got referrals from a local senior citizens center in my city, they also did an extensive background check and bonded me.

Guess I always thought that nursing homes and assisted living facilities did the same.

My mom works as an RN at the hospital in the town I live in and although she likes her job she wanted to expand her horizons so she tried working part time at a nursing home, she would come home in a terrible mood, she said the place was just awful,she quit shortly after. I will tell you that the nursing home she worked at was full of drug attics and convicted felons, is this to say they don't deserve a second chance? No, but they didn't even do their job. My mom asked where the crash cart was in case they had a stroke heart attack etc. and it was 1 tank of oxygen with nothing to hook it up to on a cart My step brother applied and got a job cooking there and he was a convicted felon for DWI's.

S&F most nursing homes are # holes that need reform

Really now. Does Inspector General for Health and Human Services, also have a report that might aggregate all the convictions of Federal, State or governmental employees? There may be a "kernal" of truth here, but until they can "gaurantee" that the data collected and analyzed, "was not" performed by some part of the criminal element, this means nothing to me.

I work at a Healthcare Facility. the issue is not the convicted felons, but the quality of people that take the jobs. I work in transportation, I take the residents to and from doctor and hospital visits. I make it as pleasant experience as possible. It's not always easy.

we have a shortage of CNA's here and need many more, but sometimes we have to fill a spot until someone better comes along too. They are closely supervised the first few weeks/months working depending on experience.

Some of the families make the workplace more difficult, so even less people and willing to do the work.

It's a truly thankless Job, everyone and everything is your "boss".

If it was "fun" everyone would be doing it