[Sparko]

"I belong to a group who monitors nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
Right now, with the legislation we have, there are abuses, medical malpractice, and a severe shortage of CNAs in these places leading to all sorts of patient abuse.
This pending legislation is an open door to elder abuse and abuse of the disabled.
I’m making some phone calls to the director of my outfit and she will be burning up the phones to other organizations who also monitor care.
This needs to be stopped dead."
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OpusatFR, bump to what you wrote.
And bump to yours, bert
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2304274/posts?page=48#48

IMHO, nursing home care is a systemic failure due to inflexible federal, state, Medicare and Medicaid regulations; a management focus on the bottom line instead of the well-being of the resident/patient; and a warehousing mentality.

Neutral oversight is important to represent the resident. Some states have ombudsmen to help distraught family members when promised care was not delivered.

Yes - there are many cases of individual goodness and efforts on the part of individuals, both certified and aides, but there is a general lack of awareness or care for the resident as a whole. Different people poke and prod and write stuff down but do not grasp the whole.

If you have a total care relative in a nursing home or acute care facility, you need to be a strong advocate for proper care and monitor his daily status.

If you have not been to a nursing home or long term assisted living recently, it's an eye opener.

If nursing care for a family member is in your future, you should already be visiting nursing homes and asking questions and ticking certain ones off the list.

Under Obama's proposals, it will only get worse. To see what Obama & government Care holds for you, simply volunteer at nursing home or other long term facility for a week or more. Ignore the glossy brochures and observe what is going on. You will do no harm, you will help the resident(s), and you might even decide that nursing homes are not in your future.

[3catsanadog]

If Medicaid would cover home care, many of these poor folks could be at home with loved ones and nurses and aids coming in to help care for them.

But they don't and many families do not have the resources (money and time and a super human abundance of patience) for grownups who need partial or complete help in feeding themselves, bathing themselves, toileting themselves, ambulating, putting their clothes on, taking the medicine correctly, and, in the case of dementia, making sure they don't wander off, light a fire, flood the house, or pee or poop on the floor and then play in it. (Yes, they will play in poop like infants. And once it dries, you need a paint scraper to get it off furniture and floors.)