The previous two entries started my focus on encouraging more people of all ages to be aware of the National guidelines for State's Senior Living Facilities to ensure the INDIVIDUAL and PERSONAL health and well being of Seniors.
On the surface, just visiting, many people believe the facility where their loved one lives provides a "good" environment and "cares" about each resident.
Maybe you're lucky. Maybe you can afford a facility that has higher standards and practices. But, for how long? If you don't enter "near the end" of life (and who actually knows when that is?) chances are, according to latest statistics, you'll spend at least three years in a facility.
Perhaps, like a friend of mine in Mom's facility whom we visit as often as we can, you'll encounter a very limiting life medical condition at a very "young" age and spend years inside the walls of a facility.
We've watched over the past two years as her abilities have decreased in ways we believe were due to lack of care and neglect. It seems to us that once a resident becomes "costly" in care or in wants and needs the facility starts decreasing the level and amount of service and oversight and the resident's health and well being declines considerably.
WE WANT A HIGHER MARGIN OF SAFETY FOR SENIORS IN FACILITIES
TRANSPARENCY. MORE INFORMATION READILY AVAILABLE. STATISTICS FOR STATES AND CURRENT STATISTICS ON INDIVIDUAL FACILITIES SERVICES AND INVESTIGATIONS.
The more you're there, the more you see and hear and if you vary your days and times of visit, not just going when there are special events or activities, you may witness many nightmares others and your own loved one experience.
This site is determined to be a guide beneath the surface, into the real world where Seniors live and try to survive daily often struggling to adjust and endure ever changing reductions in service and daily needs.
DISCUSSION: Rights of the Individual.
The Medicare/Medicaid State Guide DOES NOT focus on the rights of the facility to make decisions based on what is best for them financially including making decisions to provide or not provide a level of service or provision because they made a poor buying decision or supply purchase.
EXAMPLE FROM RECENT EXPERIENCE that's actually a constant repetition of systems and procedures at the Skilled Nursing Center where Mom lived.
Son of a resident visits his father. Dad is becoming more and more incontinent. Son constantly finds his father sitting in paper pants (with a liner, supposedly) that is soaked with urine and possibly with feces.
FACILITY'S RESPONSE: They've changed suppliers and cannot change the man's type of pants until they "run out" of what they purchased for him and some "staff" tell the Son they can't be changed until "the supply purchased for the entire facility" runs out.
WRONG! This decision and action are a financial decision made to benefit the facility, not the individual's health and well being.
The Senior faces possible infection, sores, and other health issues plus mental deterioration, potential challenges with behavior -- AND JUSTIFIABLY SO.
How would you like to sit in your urine and/or excrement only to be told and/or shown through lack of necessary changes and attendance this is going to continue indefinitely?
IT HAPPENED TO MY MOM. The facility refused to provide liners for her paper pants when the pants they chose to provide would not hold the amount of urine she passed.
In the beginning, Mom was more cognizant and could get the pants changed; in the beginning, the facility was a little more responsive -- but then when a "new" resident comes in, they're very responsive for the first thirty days or so and then it becomes a descent into a living nightmare a living H---.
INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS. That father, husband, human being HAS RIGHTS.
He does NOT have to wait until the facility "uses up" whatever supply of improperly requested, fitted incontinence pants.
THINK ABOUT THIS. Come into the outside world and apply the same "reasoning".
You receive a prescription for a medication, a physical brace for a sports injury or special shoes or a wheelchair.
Immediately or within a period of time, you realize you're having reactions to the medication, sores produced from the brace or shoes, the wheelchair is fitted incorrectly and causing you to only be able to move forward or back but won't turn.
You go to your Doctor or the medical provider and they tell you you have to "live with it" because your insurance paid for what you received or it's wasteful to provide another type or you'll have to wait until they "get it right" with the vendor understanding how to measure or order.
REALLY? I don't think any "outsider" which is how I'm referring to people who are privileged to live outside of the walls of a Senior facility that violates individual rights -- would stand still for this treatment. They'd be calling the local news channel, newspaper, out on Facebook, Twitter and using any and all Social Media to correct this violation of medical and personal needs.
SO, WHY AREN'T YOU? If you have someone inside a facility and you're experiencing this type of treatment, how long are you going to sit by, stand by and believe it will work itself out? If you have no "ties" to a facility consider "volunteering" your time to spend online researching what can be done to enlighten the public that rights are only rights when they're respected and when those capable of ensuring they're respected, ARE!
Chances are, based on statistics, the facility will outlast your loved ones and you'll walk away (or most probably run) until another time when you're "forced" to face another incarceration -- yes, that's what it can be like and was like for Mom and for us -- in facilities that, day to day, are the cause or instrumental in pain and suffering for Seniors entrusted to their care.
Will you continue to read these entries, feel sad or sorry for us and then turn away and go on with your life?
Perhaps someone should put pictures of "caged" Seniors who've been "neglected" or "abused" in facilities on the TV like current ads for Dogs and Cats needing to be rescued from this treatment.
Or will we just keep moving forward and keep praying it won't happen to us, we won't be unfortunate enough to be subjected to "that kind" of treatment.
Please add a note and tell me what humane actions in the United States or anywhere have simply been a matter of chance and not a matter of choice and action. I can't think of any.
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