Audio-Video Monitoring

New Mexico Nursing Home Video Surveillance Law

We would like to think that vulnerable adults receive capable and respectful care from nursing home staff. Unfortunately a high percentage of nursing home residents are subjected to abuse or neglect. The New Mexico legislature has recognized this problem and, by passing a law giving families the right to install web or video cameras (granny cams) in patient rooms. Through video monitoring a family is able to see that nursing home staff members are providing adequate care and treating the patient with respect.

Your family has a right to install a video camera in a nursing home patient room to monitor care. If the nursing home refuses to comply contact an attorney at our Albuquerque office.

Nursing home administrators fought passage of the law, claiming it would make it difficult to keep staff. Some nursing home administrators deny the law, claiming a family needs a court order to install a surveillance camera (you do not) or failing to provide supervision of staff to protect the camera after installation. The only limitation is that the camera be visible and not hidden.

At Branch Law Firm® our lawyers recommend the cameras to friends and family members concerned about elder abuse or nursing home neglect. In one instance our client installed the camera and within twelve hours it had been stolen by an attendant. In another case the camera recorded a patient being dropped not once, but twice, and made it clear that the patient's bedsores were the result of the nursing staff's negligent failure to turn the patient in bed.

If you are close to someone who receives care in a nursing home, assisted living, or from a home healthcare aide you can serve an important function by offering to serve as a patient advocate.