Defending Your Right To Work for Nurses and Healthcare Worke

Recently, I was able to defend my client’s right to work in a certified assisted living care facility after she had been unfairly named in an agency complaint against the company that ran the facility.

Unlike nursing homes which are regulated by the Department of Health Services, assisted living care facilities and residential care facilities are regulated by the Department of Social Services. This is a rapidly growing industry that the Department of Social Services is struggling to keep up with and regulate. Recent figures in San Mateo County show a drop in large nursing homes and convalescent homes and an explosion of smaller assisted living facilities.

Now regulators from the Department of Social Services (DSS) are responding to the situation with administrative action and penalties against owners as well as workers in the facilities. Unfortunately when the owners of a facility come under scrutiny and the DSS files an administrative complaint against them it is not unusual for health care workers to get caught in the crossfire.

Most problems in care facilities occur not from individual acts of workers in the facility but from poor management practices. Short staffing, back to back shifts, poor training as well as a lack of attention to facility management often lead to accidents, injury and or neglect at a home. In addition the facility must be aware of its own limits and refrain from admitting patients who require greater care and assistance than the facility is qualified to provide. Bad management practices can also lead to injury or harm to the healthcare worker with excessive lifting, or failure to provide the tools essential to providing care required by patients.

In negotiating the dismissal of my client from the case we engaged the department in a program of full disclosure of problems and were able to show that no negligence was exhibited by my client. She was a good soul working in difficult circumstances.

In defending your right to work as a healthcare worker it is important that you follow the following basic tenets:

1. Seek employment with a reputable facility.
2. Talk to workers at the facility before taking your job.
3. Document any problems in the facility both in your own journal or calendar as well as the facility care log with copies for your records.
4. Report issues to management concerning staffing, facility care, patient care and make copies of written reports for your records.
5. Report any violations or abuses to Department of Social Services.

These basic rules will ensure that you avoid being placed in a bad position between a non-compliant employer, patients who need care and an angry enforcement agency.

If you have been named in an agency proceeding, you should seek qualified counsel immediately. There are strict rules concerning responding to the agency, making an appearance in agency proceedings, and failure to comply with these demands at the outset could hurt your ability to defend your case.

Robert J. DuPont is the founding attorney for The Law Offices of Robert J. DuPont. Mr. DuPont graduated from Yale University and USC Law School. He is admitted to the California Supreme Court, Federal District Courts in the Central and Northern Districts of California, as well as the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. DuPont has been a speaker at ILW, a leading immigration law publisher. He was the founder of the Immigration Law Committee with the Beverly Hills Bar Association. Mr. DuPont has risen to prominence with over a decade’s practice in the field of immigration law. He has brought cases to their successful conclusion before the EOIR, BIA, AAO, Federal District Court and 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

A similar version of this article may have been published in the Asian Journal.