Believe it or not the elderly is a vital part of our communities. They offer great wisdom, comfort, intelligence, and some unique Christmas and birthday gifts. But part of being an elder is the age. But with age comes a multitude of concerns and issues. Many older folks stay at home with relatives or even alone but there is also a great population that depends on hospital care and retirement homes. Many people have to make that decision of home care or retirement care. . . But I am here to persuade you to think a little harder before you make the final decision.
No need to beat around the bush; I am completely against retirements homes. Why? Retirement hones are very cold places because these people are living “standard lives”. They make little choices of their own. You have to eat at 11:35. . . Play bingo at 2; it allows very little freedom. I am a trumpet and piano player and I have seen hundreds of older folks at retirement homes all around my city and neighboring suburbs. I have also participated in activities one on one with them. Believe it or not retirement homes have been stripped of there rights. They have a schedule they follow everyday; many have left some personal items and worldly possessions behind. These people aren’t aliens they are just like us (just older). They have feelings too; the “victims” if you will have nothing to live for anymore. You know they have lost getting up in the morning to walk the dog, or lost the countless hours babysitting the grandchildren; these are just a few examples of ways their rights are being stripped.
But this blog deals with the elderly just as much as every one else. Many younger relatives make the ultimate decision but they don’t realize this is someone’s life. Of course there are some circumstances where a retirement home/ hospital care is the only option. It's just because I have seen so many people enter retirement homes with great health and die three months later because everything has changed and they have nothing to look forward to. So try not to be selfish when making these decisions after all this could be you one day. You never know what you may learn from an elderly living with you.
Retirement homes are often bad. Some places are good, but others are hellish pits of despondency and despair...not to mention, the care given at these places is often not up to snuff.
(if you can't see the fnords they won't eat you)
Normally, I could agree with you. So many nursing and retirement homes are not good. And even those that do have a good track record can be seriously degraded if even a single employee is a bad apple (as it were). But...
Retirement and nursing homes don't always mean a loss of freedom. I have worked in nursing homes. The nursing homes were rough in some respects, I won't dispute that. But, we had residents in both homes that had their own cars, that had pets, that ate when they wanted too and what they wanted too. We had a few residents in both homes that kept a stash of beer in their rooms. The homes provided transportation every few days to go shopping, to go to the movies, museums, the circus. Where they went and when was up to the the resident council who talked to the residents and then made a plan on depending on where everyone wanted to go. We scheduled activities throughout the day, but if they didn't want to play bingo at 2, they could play bingo at 6.
Home care can be difficult on families and that has to be taken into consideration. I care for my nephew at home though insurance would pay for him to be in a long term care facility. We have a full time nursing staff for him. His insurance pays for it because he's on a ventilator. Some days it's rough. I wouldn't put him in a long term care facility for anything in the world because we are capable of caring for him at home, but the reality is that not everyone can care for a family member at home.
I also do home health care for a local hospital. Our patients are elderly. Medicare doesn't pay for private nursing. They pay for us to go in and give a bath. That's it. If we're doing private care (3 to 24 hours a day), they have to pay for it out of pocket. The charge is steep. 16.75 an hour for a CNA. That adds up quickly. In addition to that, there is a lot we can't do. We can't administer medications, we can't mess with feeding tubes, with IVs, with trachs, or with most any medical appliance or device for that matter. That is completely up to the family. Patients with dementia, alzhemiers, etc can be incredibly hard to care for at home, especially if you don't have a large family to depend upon. Even with that back up home care staff, it gets rough.
One of my favorite people in the world was a patient for a long time. He had Alzheimer's. He had 24/7 care and his wife. A few months ago, he really started the downhill decline. Every lock in the house had to be changed so it took a key from either side so we could keep him in the house. His wife had to start sleeping in another room because he kept her awake all night long. The staff had to sit in his bedroom with him and follow behind him everywhere he went. He would jerk his catheter out and pee in the floor. He did that one day and his wife fell slipped and fell. He was combative. When I would get there at 7pm, his wife would burst into tears because the day had been so bad. That was a regular occurrence for three weeks. She finally made the decision to put him in the nursing home because we simply couldn't do it anymore.
Like I said, the reality is that it's not always possible and sometimes the best way to care for a person is to put them in a nursing home where a trained staff is there 24 hours a day 7 days a week and a doctor just a call away. Every person and every situation is different. While nursing homes shouldn't be the first option, sometimes they are the best option.
Anyway, didn't mean to write a book on this, just wanted to toss that out there.
"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them." Isaac Asimov
"Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain the whole truth, or the only truth." Charles Dana
I thought this would be about mercy killing or putting the elderly to sleep much like we put pets down with bad health problems. I am surprised that people aren't doing this already.
"Put your faith completely in Jesus Christ, not in any man or any movement."
~ Robert L. Sumner
I am totally with Gbrown888 in this blog!!!!! Fallon has a vested interest because of employment. Look at the big picture. these DEATH WAREHOUSES as they are justly called, are nothing but big business that care nothing about the people , the poor souls who have to endure existance living or just breathing until they expire in them. Maybe these wonderful family members who put they supposable loved ones there, should have to eat the crap they feed these people and live in a jail cell minus the bars. the crap they call food I would'nt feed my dog and he would put his nose up at it!!! There is absolutely nothing for these people to do. Everytime you go in there the employees seem to be sitting on their butts doing nothing.!!! What a job they have. These places are like a big Xmas present all wrapped in pretty paper and big ribbon; open it up and there is nothing inside!! I've said enough for now. I do need to sleep and I continue I'll be too upset to sleep. Remember the old saying to RESPECT YOUR ELDERS, they are they wealth of knowledge to all of us. Maybe some of these so-called caring family members should actually stop and take the time to have heart felt conversations with these wonderful people, they might learn something and realize the world isn't only about them!!! and we will all get old someday, but make sure those important power of attorney documents are in order with all your wishes dotting those I's and crossing those T's so no one can take your life from you against your will!!!!
k.b.
I work in home health care, so if anything, it is in my best interest and that of my employer to encourage people to keep their family members at home no matter what. If I leave the organization I currently work with, it will be because I am leaving the nursing field completely.
I daresay that before you lump all nursing homes together as death warehouses and all family members together as unfeeling bastards, you should attempt to actually educate yourself about the realities of home care and nursing home care and talk to some of those that are in nursing homes.
"Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you." - Kahlil Gibran
"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them." Isaac Asimov
That it is the STATE that strips older people of their houses and other valuables. The STATE requires that in order for people to qualify for programs such as Medicaid, they have less than $1500 in assets (that's in Ohio). I work in the Business Office of a nursing home, so I can provide you with factual information that you probably don't know in making your decisions about what nursing homes do and don't do.
Did you realize, that in the state of Ohio, the current reimbursement rate for one day of care to one resident is $188. Consider this, if the nursing home pays the State Tested Nursing Assistants $10/hr that equals $240 in cost just to provide direct care. That figure does not include medications, nurses to administer the medication, food, laundry, bills, etc. So, you tell me, how does the nursing home improve the care they give to nursing home patients when the STATE doesn't even reimburse enough to cover the costs of taking care of one patient.
The STATE requires that nursing home patients pay every cent of their pensions, social security income, and other means of income to the nursing home as their portion of cost. Consider this: One resident has an income of $1000 and another has an income of $100, they both have to pay every cent except for $40 that is left for their personals every month. The STATE requires that, not the nursing home. Trust me I don't think it's fair either that both of these example residents have to pay ALL of their money when one makes more than the other.
Now, let's say that a resident doesn't pay their portion or all of their portion. That directly cuts into the amount that the nursing home is paid. Meaning, the max amount of reimbursement is $188/day per resident. If the resident doesn't pay their portion then the level of reimbursement may go down to $100/day. As we see from the example I posted above, $100/day is not nearly enough to cover the cost of taking care of a resident. So, before you consider that nursing homes are money hungry mongers, contact your local state representative and ask them why nursing homes aren't reimbursed more by the state and are always the first to receive cuts in state and federal funding.
Now, onto Medicare. MEDICARE makes people pay $119/day after a person's 20th date of stay in a nursing home. The nursing home does not make that decision. Granted, the nursing home bills that amount, but that's because MEDICARE makes that decision. It's no different than when you go to the doctor and have to pay your co-pay. It's not the doctor that determines your co-pay, rather that is determined by your insurance company. The co-pay is the amount of money that your doctor doesn't get paid from the insurance company. So, they are going to bill that to collect it from you. MEDICARE also has strict stipulations as to what they will pay for and nursing homes end up getting stuck with the costs of medications for MEDICARE residents.
No doubt the costs to stay in a nursing home are outrageous, but you have to look at it just the way you have to look at it when someone lives out in the community in a home. You have to consider all the costs per month, including bills, insurance costs, car payments, rent/mortgage payments, medications, groceries, personal necessities, such as soap, laundry detergent, etc., gas for your vehicle, and other necessities of daily living. Add those all up and divide that amount by the number of days in the month. See what your daily cost is to live and how that relates to how much it costs to be in a nursing home. The major difference is that you don't need anyone to provide you with 24/7 care.
There are also those that milk the system which causes nursing homes to be cast in a dark shadow of greed. There are many people that are homeless and get put in a nursing home b/c the discharge planners at the hospitals don't want to spend the time to find placement back in the community for the homeless. The shelters are always full and medical facilities are required by law to find "safe housing" for those that are discharged from their care. Meaning, these facilities cannot discharge someone from a 5 day hospital stay back out into the streets. The law prohibits that. So, now we have people that the state has to pay for their entire stay because they have no home due to various reasons. These people don't have jobs to go back to and many of them are drug abusers. That is why the cost of nursing home stays are so high; to cover for the stays of those that don't really need to be in the nursing homes.
The point is this. Before you jump to conclusions about nursing homes and how they could provide better care, consider what your STATE is doing to the elderly in your community. Nursing homes get a bad rap because no one really knows the ins and outs of what it takes to take care of a large number of people provided the reimbursement level from the STATE. The nursing home requires payment just like any other medical facility. I agree that it is unfortunate that the elderly lose everything that they have worked so hard for and trust me I have fought the system once or twice in my life to try to save some of those things for the elderly that I work for. However, the system has won every single time! Medicaid doesn't care that these people have nothing to go back to, further, neither does Medicare. These people pay their whole lives into a system that in the end doesn't work for them or within their best interests. Nursing homes do the best they can with the money they are given. They have to pay staff a competitive rate or their would be no staff. Many people make their livelihoods by working in nursing homes, so cutting pay is not an option.
The STATE's minimum level of staff to patient ratio is 1 to 15. That means that the STATE expects that 1 person can care for 15 other people regardless of their medical status. Tell me how that is physically possible. So, since the STATE keeps cutting their reimbursement to care for the residents and the STATE only requires that 1 person takes care of 15 people of varying acuity levels of health, you tell me who's really in the wrong. Is it still the nursing homes? Or, is it the STATE, MEDICAID, OR MEDICARE that forces the situations as they are in nursing homes?