Not every resident’s infection is due to care home mistreatment, but many are. It is no surprise when dehydrated patients left in their own urine and feces get UTIs. Or when untreated and unprotected wounds develop infections or gangrene. Or when residents who don’t get help with swallowing or were rendered immobile by hip fractures suffer aspiration or other types of pneumonia.
Sometimes infections can be traced to unmanaged facility outbreaks or staff’s failure to use proper isolation or handwashing. Failure to give antibiotics as ordered can also play a role, and certain infections (like Clostridium difficile or C.diff) can develop in patients who repeatedly need antibiotics to cure other infections that should have been prevented in the first place.