No one gives a damn about nursing homes until it happens to their relatives or someone they know. If enough people got together I am sure we could get a big enough ball to start rolling and making changes such as not hiring people who do not have enough schooling. I hear CNAs can get a certificate in just 3 or 4 weeks of training, yet I went my entire life to school and the state gives us a hard time with so many tests. I have seen things with CNA's that they should not do to patients in those places. They obviously do not train them. The state does not care about our elderly population. The nursing homes do not give a crap either. All they are interested in is how much they will get from the resident's insurance company. This is one type of insurance fraud that is going on because our elders are not getting the attention they deserve because they are paying the money and since no one does anything this type of thing just goes on and on. How many people are supposed to die in the nursing homes until those politicians do anything about it? DONT PUT YOUR RELATIVES IN A NURSING HOME IS THE LESSON HERE OR THEY WILL DIE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RStormfield. OMG. If any of your posts got deleted it could have been because they are bitter and filled with unfounded and overgeneralized accusations, but maybe you are just looking at only the "most Helpful Answers" instead of "All Answers" on the threads.
I understand - You want to blame a nursing home for your grandmother dying, because that is where she died after you spent most of your life caring for her, but truly, she would not have gone into the nursing home if she were not already very, very ill and infirm to start with. Please know that neither you nor the nursing home could have kept your grandmother from dying. If they were all about money and nothing else they would do whatever it takes to keep someone alive, whether or not it made any sense in terms of their comfort or compassion, because they stop getting paid when the person dies. Supervising someone's care when they are in a facility is critical, yes - if you care that's what you do - but being constantly accusatory and condemnatory of every care decision they make and every fault you can find will not be helpful. There are good caring people and not-so-caring people in nearly every health care facility, because every one of them is staffed by human beings like you and me who cannot be perfect.
The problem is that in the process of making yourself feel better, you don't care how bad you make anyone else feel who has needed to use facility care because their loved one's care was unmanageable at home. By saying things like "don't put your relatives in a nursing home...or they will die" you are hurting people. How would you feel if you knew that a caregiver read that, took it to heart, and decided they had to keep caring for someone at home even though their own health was deteriorating, and they died from it? This happens. Get help for yourself and your own unhealed wounds so you can stop lashing out. I know you do not mean to be hurtful, but this is supposed to be a place where hurts are healed, not inflicted, and you really should listen and think things through before posting the same sort of thing yet again.
In response to RStormfield, I am sorry that you had a bad experience with your grandma in the nursing home there in the Bronx. As an Occupational Therapy Assistant that has worked in various nursing homes over the past 25 years as well as in home health, assisted living, and independent living facilities, I can tell you that some of what you have to say about nursing homes is true. However, I will say that some are much better than others. Over the years I have worked in many skilled nursing facilities, some that provided excellent care and some that didn't. I have also worked in some lousy ones where the staff doesn't seem to give a darn. My 87 year-old mother with dementia has been in one very upscale skilled nursing and rehab facility where she was provided excellent care as well as therapy. She was also in two other nursing homes that were okay but not the greatest. The reason why they didn't send her back to the upscale skilled nursing facility was because they were full both times. (That should tell you something about this particular facility!) She has also been in assisted living facilities and an independent living center prior to being in a long-term nursing facility. So in other words, I am pretty knowledgeable when it comes to the various nursing care facilities, and I feel that I have a pretty well-rounded viewpoint - both as a staff member and as a consumer.
What you say about nursing homes being a big business is partially correct. I know that in the therapy departments where I worked at most of the rehab staff I worked with really cared about the patients or they would not have been in the helping profession they were in. However, I also saw a majority of the nursing homes start stressing "increased productivity" over quality care. In other words, since Medicare reimburses the nursing homes based on the number of minutes (or units) we worked with them in therapy for on a given week, then we were under pressure to work with everyone so many minutes per week so that we could get the highest reimbursement possible. When I first started working in the nursing homes in 1988, they required us to be 75% productive - which means that we were supposed to have 75% billable treatment time and 25% non-billable time, most of which we spent doing our documentation. Over the years I saw most of the nursing homes increase their demands to the point where they expected us to be 90% productive every day, which meant we had to have billable time of 90% per day which only left 10% of the day for non-billable time such as doing our documentation. So most of us ended up doing our documentation over our lunch break. We also were pressured to do more and more documentation, most of which is done on computers now, during our therapy treatments. There was also a time in the early to mid-1990's when there was a push to do more group therapy in order to increase our productivity. However, since the early 2000's Medicare no longer allows us to do group therapy. So now that most nursing homes require 90% productivity, I for one feel that this is very unreasonable if not impossible, which was my primary reason for leaving the nursing homes and switching to home health.
Also, what you said about the nursing home not cleaning your mother has also been true in the case of some nursing homes I have worked at as well as one of the assisted living centers that my mother was in. What I have observed to be true in most nursing homes is that patients turn on their light because they have to go to the bathroom, and because the nursing home is so understaffed the patients usually end up waiting at least 30 minutes before the aide finally comes in to help them. Obviously, a lot of seniors can't hold it that long and end up soiling themselves! Now I am not saying that the nursing homes leave the people soiled like that! Most of the time once the aides finally do take the person to the bathroom they will also clean them up. However, at one particular nursing home that I personally worked at, the family members ended up having to give their loved ones baths most of the time as the nursing home staff, for whatever reason, didn't have time. As far as assisted living is concerned, my mother was in one ALF where the aides were supposed to assist with giving her a shower twice a week. Well, she was there a total of two months, and I can tell you that the only times she got a shower was when an Occupational Therapist came to evaluate her level of independence with showering and when my sister-in-law (who happens to be a nurse) gave her one. Then finally after I complained to the Executive Director that my mother was not getting showers, the aides finally gave her a total of two showers, and that was the entire two months that she was there! I finally ended up moving her to another assisted living after that that took better care of her. They actually did assist with giving my mother baths regularly. They even kept a chart on her kitchen cabinet and checked off every time that they did. The same is true with nursing homes. There are some that take very good care of patients for the most part, and there are others that don't seem to care. I am sorry that your grandmother happened to be in the latter. Anyway, ultimately when faced with a choice of leaving my mother in a nursing home or moving her in with us, we chose to move her in with us. Primarily because she wanted to be with family and we thought that it would be best for her, but also because I wanted to. However, if it got to the point where I could no longer take care of her myself anymore I would probably have to place her in a nursing home. Hopefully, I will know better next time which ones are good and which ones to steer clear of.
I hope this sheds a little different perspective on the nursing homes for you as well as for millygirl.
I understand - You want to blame a nursing home for your grandmother dying, because that is where she died after you spent most of your life caring for her, but truly, she would not have gone into the nursing home if she were not already very, very ill and infirm to start with. Please know that neither you nor the nursing home could have kept your grandmother from dying. If they were all about money and nothing else they would do whatever it takes to keep someone alive, whether or not it made any sense in terms of their comfort or compassion, because they stop getting paid when the person dies. Supervising someone's care when they are in a facility is critical, yes - if you care that's what you do - but being constantly accusatory and condemnatory of every care decision they make and every fault you can find will not be helpful. There are good caring people and not-so-caring people in nearly every health care facility, because every one of them is staffed by human beings like you and me who cannot be perfect.
The problem is that in the process of making yourself feel better, you don't care how bad you make anyone else feel who has needed to use facility care because their loved one's care was unmanageable at home. By saying things like "don't put your relatives in a nursing home...or they will die" you are hurting people. How would you feel if you knew that a caregiver read that, took it to heart, and decided they had to keep caring for someone at home even though their own health was deteriorating, and they died from it? This happens. Get help for yourself and your own unhealed wounds so you can stop lashing out. I know you do not mean to be hurtful, but this is supposed to be a place where hurts are healed, not inflicted, and you really should listen and think things through before posting the same sort of thing yet again.
What you say about nursing homes being a big business is partially correct. I know that in the therapy departments where I worked at most of the rehab staff I worked with really cared about the patients or they would not have been in the helping profession they were in. However, I also saw a majority of the nursing homes start stressing "increased productivity" over quality care. In other words, since Medicare reimburses the nursing homes based on the number of minutes (or units) we worked with them in therapy for on a given week, then we were under pressure to work with everyone so many minutes per week so that we could get the highest reimbursement possible. When I first started working in the nursing homes in 1988, they required us to be 75% productive - which means that we were supposed to have 75% billable treatment time and 25% non-billable time, most of which we spent doing our documentation. Over the years I saw most of the nursing homes increase their demands to the point where they expected us to be 90% productive every day, which meant we had to have billable time of 90% per day which only left 10% of the day for non-billable time such as doing our documentation. So most of us ended up doing our documentation over our lunch break. We also were pressured to do more and more documentation, most of which is done on computers now, during our therapy treatments. There was also a time in the early to mid-1990's when there was a push to do more group therapy in order to increase our productivity. However, since the early 2000's Medicare no longer allows us to do group therapy. So now that most nursing homes require 90% productivity, I for one feel that this is very unreasonable if not impossible, which was my primary reason for leaving the nursing homes and switching to home health.
Also, what you said about the nursing home not cleaning your mother has also been true in the case of some nursing homes I have worked at as well as one of the assisted living centers that my mother was in. What I have observed to be true in most nursing homes is that patients turn on their light because they have to go to the bathroom, and because the nursing home is so understaffed the patients usually end up waiting at least 30 minutes before the aide finally comes in to help them. Obviously, a lot of seniors can't hold it that long and end up soiling themselves! Now I am not saying that the nursing homes leave the people soiled like that! Most of the time once the aides finally do take the person to the bathroom they will also clean them up. However, at one particular nursing home that I personally worked at, the family members ended up having to give their loved ones baths most of the time as the nursing home staff, for whatever reason, didn't have time. As far as assisted living is concerned, my mother was in one ALF where the aides were supposed to assist with giving her a shower twice a week. Well, she was there a total of two months, and I can tell you that the only times she got a shower was when an Occupational Therapist came to evaluate her level of independence with showering and when my sister-in-law (who happens to be a nurse) gave her one. Then finally after I complained to the Executive Director that my mother was not getting showers, the aides finally gave her a total of two showers, and that was the entire two months that she was there! I finally ended up moving her to another assisted living after that that took better care of her. They actually did assist with giving my mother baths regularly. They even kept a chart on her kitchen cabinet and checked off every time that they did. The same is true with nursing homes. There are some that take very good care of patients for the most part, and there are others that don't seem to care. I am sorry that your grandmother happened to be in the latter. Anyway, ultimately when faced with a choice of leaving my mother in a nursing home or moving her in with us, we chose to move her in with us. Primarily because she wanted to be with family and we thought that it would be best for her, but also because I wanted to. However, if it got to the point where I could no longer take care of her myself anymore I would probably have to place her in a nursing home. Hopefully, I will know better next time which ones are good and which ones to steer clear of.
I hope this sheds a little different perspective on the nursing homes for you as well as for millygirl.