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Faces: Real People, Real StoriesThe following contributions are from real residents, families and friends. In most cases, the Consumer Voice has removed any identifying information to protect consumers' identities. Featured Stories:
Advocating for Quality Care at Home Hello, my name is M. I am totally blind 62 years of age, single woman, receiving home health care services from an agency located in Washington. I have found that the quality of service leaves a lot to be desired, the providers get to the point where they do what ever they want. Complete work early then just set for two or three hours doing nothing but getting the pay from the state. It is an ongoing issue with them going to the store for me and buying what they want with my money, bringing games to work while on my state given time, making telephone calls arranging medical appointments for husbands or just engaging in friendly talk while on my state given hours. One changed where my high blood pressure meds filled without asking nor telling me that they had taken the meds somewhere else another drug store. The provider T. comes in and questions as I am a kid her tone is so offensive, I need respect from this person, I explain to all persons who come to take me to the doctor after having a stroke, I do not want to ride the freeway every time I go to doctors, office even after asking her to get off the freeway she refused. I had a video put in my home which I told my care provider T. she got upset and told me she was going to inform her supervisor at [name of agency] and she did after she talked with M., and being badly informed on the laws and people having videos in their homes, M. called me and I let her know that it is not against the law for me to have a video in my home. Read more >> Dear Sirs, I am contacting your office to ultimately clear up a problem that has been a mystery in itself and had cost my mother and myself a lot of lost time together. My mother is now deceased and had been a resident of name of nursing home in Nebraska, since the early 1990’s-1992. I believe she was placed there if memory serves. My mother did not acclimate easily to this institution's living arrangement. Read more >> A Letter to the Admissions Director About my Father October 2010 My name is Martha Deaver. I would like to tell you about some of the abuses that occurred in 1999 to my mother, mother-in-law, and other residents in a Beverly Nursing Home, Riverview Manor, in Morrilton, AR. In March of 2000 I had my mother and mother-in-law moved to St. Andrew's Place, a one-owner nursing facility located in Conway, Arkansas. This was an attempt to find better care for my loved ones. The Arkansas State Office of Long Term Care has investigated all of the abuses that I am going to tell you about. The background evidence, which are hundreds of documents, were obtained through the Freedom of Information (FOI) department, in order to prove this story. Read more >> Resuming an Active Life E. became disabled in middle age and thought he would have to live in a nursing home for the rest of his life. At a Consumer Voice Annual Meeting several years ago, he heard a speaker say he had a right to live in a less restrictive setting, and with the help of G., he moved into an apartment and resumed an active life in the big city he loves. Thank you for inquiring about E. He is fine. He even got married and I was his best man; at my age! If I had not taken him out of the nursing home, he would probably be dead today. They used to give me such a hard time just taking him to see a doctor in the hospital. Once he was out, it became so easy to just make appointments and make sure he was ok. He has been using his electric chair all the time. We have had so many fights about that issue that I gave up. I decided it is his life and not mine. He is a good soul and I love him a lot. - G. Bed Rails Daddy suffered in silence — Are you next? - A true story by B. Lou Guckian From its place on the nightstand, my cell phone rang at 2 a.m. I knew who was calling before I answered. It came from the nursing home and made the scared six-year-old in me shudder. "Hi, Daddy. Are you OK?" This time, he told me he had been lying for an hour in cold sheets wet with urine. He told how he had repeatedly pressed the red button clipped to his bed sheet to alert the nurses' station but no one had come to help him use the bedside urinal. Full of zip and lighthearted mischief before he got cancer, Daddy still suffered from incontinence caused by chemotherapy and radiation that had ended two months earlier. Thin as a skeleton and helpless as a newborn, he could barely raise his head off the pillow or punch numbers into the telephone—which he had quickly learned to cling to and sleep with. I swallowed hard pushing down the sick swell in my throat and then asked him to hang up so I could call for help. I promised to phone him right back and did. Then I lingered on the line until someone arrived to help him. In a few minutes Daddy said, "They're here now. Thank ya, Sugah. G'night." Read more >> Elder Neglect We met with the staff and reviewed and signed her care plan/contract. We specifically requested night time checks. This was a standard practice in their information packet. The night shift was to check in on her every two hours. Read more >> A Helpless Person's Plea for Empathy - A Poem Fragrance of Love - A Poem A View From the Inside: Residents Talk About Life in a Nursing Home the Government Accused of “Compromised Care”
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