This article was extremely disturbing to me in the fact that nursing homes are lacking in so many areas. Not meeting state mandates, 93% turnover rate, 54% violating federal standards some of which including food preparation! The scary thing is that these are all based on Sonoma County nursing homes, the local places that house our elderly people. If this isn’t the exact opposite of the American Dream I don’t know what is. Once the hard decision is made to have to place your loved one here the last thing on one’s mind should be if they will be properly taken care of. Unfortunetly I think that class has a huge thing to do with this. If everyone could afford to put their loved ones in a beautiful assisted living facility with luxury accommodations they would. But the hard facts remain that when an elderly loved one is at a point where they need assistance there aren’t many choices if you are limited with funds. However this is no excuse for the basic necessities of these locations to not be meeting guidelines. This article states that the main reason for the problems is finding good quality nurses and keeping them employed there. I do not feel that we live in a society that gives enough thought to the elderly, nor do people want to take responsibility to make things better for them. I feel this attitude could be a reason for why it is difficult to keep these nurses around. On the other hand I would find it difficult to work in an environment that holds such low standards; it would be terrible to see that everyday.
This is such a terrible problem today; something must be done to raise the expectations, or the repercussions to these low ratings. Life is difficult enough when you must be forced into a place like this; it is unacceptable that these nursing homes here in California aren’t meeting even the lowest guidelines. With this as problem there is no conceivable way these nursing homes could ever be called anything close to home. I think as our economy has grown weaker we may have cut corners in these facilities, and just in the thought process of how to care for the elderly. We must create a culture that puts more pride into elderly care; it is our duty to make the last years of the elderly life the best it can be. After all we are all headed there, and we will all want that same respect when it comes time for us to experience this type of life.
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Kelly,
ReplyDeleteWe definitely cut corners and it is so sad to see. All of us will be in the situation eventually and should treat the elderly as we expect to be treated. I have experienced this during my CNA training this last summer. We were taught one way and once we got into the facilities, they told us to do another which made many shortcuts. It is too bad that it has come to this. I personally do not feel good about myself cutting those corners. I am very specific of where I want to work.
Hi Tina,
ReplyDeleteHow sad that you should have been made to make such moral decisions when it comes to taking care of elderly people. It is terrible, you are so right that we will all be there one day, it took seeing my grandmother there to feel that for real. It takes a special person to care for the elderly I know this but they deserve the best care ever, it is our duty I believe.