Cora,
I just thought I'd share with you what I am experiencing with my mother at a rehab/nusring facility so that you can pass on advice to others in my position, as family to one receiving such services.
This past Monday, I learned, quite by accident with a chatty nurse, that my mother was getting finger sticks 4 times a day to monitor her blood sugar levels because she was either "diabetic prone" or had "steroid treatment" in the recent past, neither of which was true. I put an end to this!
I also realized, after seeing it on her menu daily, that "reduced calories" meant that she had been getting a reduced calorie diet despite the fact that one horrendous concern was her radical weight loss at Crozer, who did not feed her for 8 days after her surgery. That stopped when I threatened to get ugly with the facility. Yet, tonight she had the reduced calorie menu again!
I looked at my mother's identification bracelet, quite by accident, but by God's providence and realized it was the ID bracelet for her roomate. The problems this could have caused were obvious, yet the nurse when told said, "I have no idea how that happened" and went back to work on charts, ignoring me. With my insistence, she went in and spent 5 minutes trying to get it off my mother's wrist. It was then that I learned that my mother had her own ID as well as the roomates, on her wrist........and I have no idea how that happened!
My mother has severe arthritis of the spine and severe scoliosis. I recently learned that she spends all day in a regular wheel chair, sitting straight up n a very awkward position, and requested a geri-chair that is padded and reclines. One week later, after being promised that she would have the new chair, she is still in the painful old chair.
And so it goes. I am aware that she is headed for eternity with the Lord and that I will eventually be with her, but I do not want her to suffer and she has no voice to complain, as she is aphasic, and she does not hear and the facility will not put in her hearing aid.
These are some of the travails of the care-giver. When our elderly members enter such places, maybe we can become involved. There are privacy and legal entachments, but what my mother has endured has been vile and unnecessary. What happened in Crozer where surgery was done, was as bad!
Our elderly saints need our protection. I am not sure how this can be accomplished but "just" praying may not be enough, whenthe elderly are unable to communicate on their own. Not sure what the outcome of my concerns will be but I am praying not only for my mother but for all of our saints who are in similar situations. And I do trust God will honor them and help us know how to help them.
Warm regards,
Maxine
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Cora,
I forgot to mention that what I will be doing is visiting, unannounced, this facility on a daily or every other basis. I already have a notebook filled with details, showing who, what when and where. In addition, I've already got the phone number of the Dept of Health where such violations as my mother has experienced can be reported. If these facilities think they will lose Medicare funding, they start changing things, as the state reports online show.
I just wonder how many elderly are in facilties and have no family to advocate for them including my mother's roomate whose "friend" visiting her, told me that she has only a legal advocate who sees her once a month.
And I am clearly reminded of the consequences of the original sin in our lives when I see what is happening here on earth. May God continue to have mercy on us and on our elderly saints whose lives are deteriorating prior to entering His kingdom.
Maxine
