Before placing your loved one in a nursing
home, go to medicare.gov and check its health inspections. Commonly that is the
area where nursing homes receive the lowest rating. When you choose a nursing
home, be prepared to be present to monitor conditions.
Those inspection ratings tell only half the story. Your family member suffers from the untold story. In the first nursing home my daughter ended up with bleeding bedsores, staff did not properly monitor her diabetes, and she was allowed to lie in feces and a sweat soaked bed for hours because of understaffing. Their business manager had told me to KEEP MY HANDS off my own daughter. The third nursing home was worse.
The nurses (LPNs)in nursing homes did not know how to tell if Brenna's diabetes was getting out of control because they were using the WRONG protocol for her. They used cheap glucometers and refused to allow me to use Brenna's personal glucometer which gave readings within two points of those at the hospital. So much for the corporate mantra of, "ALL our staff is trained to spot signs of trouble." IMHO, this is a blatant misrepresentation of what actually happens.
Corporate nursing homes are business ventures
with one loyalty: to the investors. Properly caring for fragile patients eats
into profits. As the first administrator told me, “This isn’t a hospital. You
can’t expect anything more.” She was right. Too many nursing homes give minimum
care and no one in society or the system holds them accountable.
Years ago, I heard an older gentleman say, "A nursing home is where you go to die. I am not going there." I believe he is right.
If you are a brittle Type I diabetic, as Brenna had been for 22 years, there is no one smart enough in nursing homes to adequately monitor Type I diabetes. Been there, done that. If anyone dies in a nursing home because of complications from their diabetes, it isn't the patient's fault. It is an inadequate system that allows bad things to happen to good people.
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