Nursing Home Regulations and CPR - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Police in Bakersfield, CA are investigating whether there was any criminal wrongdoing in an independent living facility's handling of a resident's death after a nurse refused to perform CPR on a woman who was barely breathing, and later died.

You may wonder if that could happen to your loved one.

President of the North Dakota Long Term Care Association, Shelly Peterson says there are different types of care.

In North Dakota only Skilled Nursing Facilities, such as the Baptist Home in Bismarck, are required to have CPR certified staff on hand.

Peterson says Independent Living Facilities, like the one the resident in California was living in, do not have staff on hand 24 hours a day.

She says her mother lives in an Independent Living facility in Bismarck, where residents can pull an emergency cord if they need medical attention.

"Now if a nurse happened to be responding and my mother had indicated that she wanted CPR, I'm sure they would start CPR but in the lease agreement the expectation is that they would call 911," Shelly Peterson, President of the North Dakota Long Term Care Association said.

At the Baptist Home, all nurses are CPR Certified.

When residents move in they can choose one of three classes.

The first class indicates they want full medical support, including CPR.

The second class says they want full medical support, excluding CPR.

And the final class is for those who might be nearing the end of life, and only want to be comfortable and do not want any life prolonging treatments.

"We have some patients who are a class one and as soon as we detect something is going on here we put in everything we can and we call the ambulance right away, if you were in the hospital setting they would do everything they could for you there and they would call their team of specialists in, we don't have that in a nursing home, so we do what we can and call the ambulance so we can get you to the specialist if you need it," Michelle Fiedler said.

More regulations apply if the facility receives receives federal or state funds, like medicare or medicaid.