Are VA nursing homes bad?

   USA Today and the Boston Globe, have received proof that about half of all the countries The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), nursing homes are among the lowest ranked nursing homes. Coming in at 1 out of 5 stars the results are scary. This information is not normally made know to the public, leaving patients and their family members guessing if a particular VA nursing home will provide the needed care or not.
 
   Two of the poorly rated VA nursing homes are located right here in Massachusetts. The one in Bedford and the other in Brockton. A rep for the VA; however, reported that the VA nursing homes are comparable to the private nursing homes. Also, VA nursing homes overall have had increasingly better ratings over the last year with only one nursing home becoming noticeably worse.

The VA operates nursing homes in almost every state. Some states have only one nursing home while others have multiple VA nursing homes. There is also a VA nursing home in Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. Overall there are 133 VA nursing homes that while they have low ratings are still as a whole doing better than the private sector. This may be good or may tell us that nursing homes as a whole need to be better equipped to deal with the patients that it cares for.

To see the official release by the Departement of Veterans Affairs you can click here.


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