Nursing home residents suffer from staffing shortages, but the jobs are hard to fill
A decade after suffering a stroke that forever changed his life, Maurice Miller has good days and bad ones.
On good days, the staff at his nursing home in Takoma Park, Md., can meet all of his basic needs: feeding him, cleaning him, changing his hospital gown, and ensuring that his laptop, which he uses through dictation, is charged and within reach.
On bad days, something goes wrong and it takes awhile before someone is available to respond to his call button — sometimes 45 minutes or longer.
"It's a bad day when I'm in pain, and I'm not going to get relief in a timely fashion," says Miller, who describes himself as a functional quadriplegic.
It's also a bad day when he cannot call his 94-year-old mother, because his computer has been pushed out of reach. Or when his roommate
