Step 4: Follow Up to Be Sure the Nursing Home Does Its Job

I see in this forum a lot of people going on and on about poor quality of care, neglect, abuse, poor quality of facility grounds, being banned from the facility ect. ect..

Here is a simple remedy!

MOVE!

Dont keep your loved ones in sub-standard quailty facility.

If they really are as horrible as several of you have mentioned, then dont leave your loved ones there for not one more second.

If you are BANNED and cant go see momma, then MOVE momma, for petes sake!

If your banned from seeing momma and your not mommas power of attorney or guardian, then there is more to the story then you are letting on. If your not power of attorney or guardian of momma because another sibling is the POA then you shall insist they move momma. If they refused then, again there is more to the story then you are telling.

MOST nursing homes try, they may not be perfect or even good at best, but they do try. Most facilities know that you cannot just milk the business for all its worth, and substitue quality care with cheap carlessness.

There are a few out there that try, they do not/will not suceed.

JOHN R. of TX 12:49PM June 28, 2011

I really appreciate the tips in this website. Six months ago, I needed to put my mother in law in a nursing home for respite care while my husband had surgery. I could not care for them both. The insurance company nurse made a recommendation to a reportedly good

She is bedridden and needs an assist to the commode by her bed. She could not walk to a bathroom. The staff seemed nice and willing to coordinate care with us at time of admission. It was just a matter of a couple of days however before we saw just the opposite. She went from commode able to diapers in just a couple of days. They took her commode away because they would not respond when she called for an assist to go when she needed 2-3 time each day. Her clothes were found in someone elses dresser even though they were well marked with her name in large letters. I found her shivering with the windows open and insufficient clothing on one day when I went to see her.

They took away her untouched food tray assuming she didn't want to eat rather than ask to assist. She was supposed to be on soft diet as she has no teeth and will not wear her dentures. Instead, I observed regular food cut small which presents a choking hazard. Mother drinks tea with each meal. The kitchen would only bring her coffee or milk and when I asked about it, was told that their residents only drank tea. A water pitcher was difficult for her to manage and at home, we provided small opened bottles of water by her bed so she could drink when she wanted. The facility said they they would provide the water bottles but when I saw them on the night stand, they were not opened. The caps were hard to open. as a result, mother could not drink the water. Staff would bring her a fresh bottle every day but did not ask why she was not drinking them. They would just add another one tot he table each day. It was easy to understand that she would be come dehydrated.

My husbands mobility took a bit longer than we expected and although Mom's visit was to be two weeks, it was three before we could take her home. One of the workers said to me when we went to get her - "That was the longest two weeks I ever heard of." I was shocked!

Clearly in this case, the facility must have been understaffed and overworked, but to see such things. This expereince was sad and opened my eyes. Now we are at a point where a job layoff will force a move and we have to sell our home. We are moving her to a nursing home so showing the house does not expose her to strangers and our crisis does not impact her too much. At 99 and now needing complete care, we begin the process again.

Sarah J of MA 8:18AM October 08, 2010

We are soon facing care for our mother and I appreciate the guidelines offered in this website.

I think that anyone running for public office that is going to be passing any kind of legislation regarding healthcare and money should spend a week working at a nursing home.

For the most part staff at nursing homes work harder than anyone I know under the most trying conditions. They work with anxious old people whose bodily functions are no longer under control and reality no longer exist. Every day is a quagmire and they get paid minimum wage.

For those who can not affort Assisted Living, a nursing home is the only choice. How we take care of our children and our elderly tells a lot about us as a society.

Carol Stephens of OK 2:49PM September 20, 2010

I work in assisted living facility and my mother was just moved from such a facility to a nursing home. The nurses and aids that work at both assisted living facilities bend over backwards to see that their residents (patients) get the best care available - I have seen this many times with my own eyes.

In the nursing home, the aids are attentive and very caring to their patients. This home is in a very old building and it isn't nearly as pretty or nice as the assisted living facility was but because the PEOPLE are good to my mother, that's what counts. In fact I just checked out a "brand new" facility nearby (feeling guilty because we moved her from a beautiful building to one kind of shabby but clean) and you know what - the new one has only a 2 star rating (Federal rating) and the old one has a 3 star rating (also Federal). The old one has 4 stars in both health inspections and nursing - the new one has only 2 stars and 1 star respectively.

What all this boils down to is that you can't judge a book by its cover - it's the care that counts.

Also, in working in this type of a facility daily, I've noticed that their are two kinds of residents and two kinds of families - there are those that appreciate what the facility is trying to accomplish for them and then their are those who complain no matter what you do, these people find SOMETHING to gripe about every day. If we say black they say white if we say the sky is blue, they say it's cloudy. These people make their own lives and those of everyone around them miserable and their complaining does little if anything to make things better.

I just want to say that I think Louis probably caused a lot more problems for his loved one that he tried to "fix" in order to have him banned. Most police departments want a really valid health or safety reason to ban someone from any facility - it wasn't just because he pointed out some mold. Perhaps if he had had the patience to give staff time to remediate the problem, he would not have been banned at all unless of course, there were a mirad of other reasons to begin with.

ladybee of IL 7:08PM April 26, 2010