Alzheimer's Association helps protect our interests.
A few years ago I came to Medford knowing I was going to meet some very special people. I didn't know how very special until today.
As we proceeded to develop all the necessary paperwork for purchasing our new home I met a Loan Officer by the name of James Beard. I found him knowledgable, energetic, and committed to building a better community. Over the past few years he has included me in his mailing lists wherein he describes his various family, and business activities and adventures. I have become to feel as if I were a part of his extended family more than just a business client.
Today I received another friendly missive from him. It has come to pass that he has decided he can no longer participate in the local annual Alzheimer's Association's Walk highlighting the fight to eliminate Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia. The local association allows institutions to sponsor the Walk even if they have substantiated cases of neglect. This, James notes, "gives the perception that the facility is a healthy environment for our elderly and gives a false sense of security when placing a parent in the home."
My friend James Beard, is a very public, and very outspoken, advocate for those that are unable to advocate for themselves. He issued one very pointed demand: "I am demanding that these homes clean up their problems and operate with no claims of abuse or neglect for one year before they are permitted to advertise and/or sponsor the Walk."
Alluding to state laws governing the operations at these facilities he says, "Until the laws are changed and people and organizations stand up for our elderly citizens, I will continuously try to make people aware so together we can make lives safer for our Seniors."
He included a listing of Licensed Facilities with (three or more) Substantiated Abuse Complaints. The information is from the Oregon Department of Human Services.
If you select Jackson County, set Start Date = 01/01/2015, and set End Date = 12/31/2016 you may read the list to which James referred.
Apparently, I have a challenge If I want to become known as the champion of just causes in this valley.
Comments
My mother significantly declined in mental health being moved
into a nursing home. That decline had been pre-called by my niece, an RN. What does one expect of a limited-vision demented person? Lewy body disease for her. At least she got to hallucinate visits with dead friends. She was nearly 97. Hard to outlive one's cohort. She was harboring her parents in her house. I negotiated calls to her maybe thrice then, nursing homes may have been kind at the lower levels of care, not so much there at the white girl level.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
My father suffered with Alzheimers
When it got to the point that my mother could no longer care for him, she placed him in a large nursing facility recommended by his doctor. It was one of those large corporate owned facilities and it turned out to be horrible. Staffing was sparse and turnover was constant. Then on the advice of his hospice provider, my mother was able to get him into a small locally owned nursing home whose owners lived on the premises. He spent his last two years there and I feel so fortunate we were able to have him there. They had almost double the staffing of the previous facility and only one person left during the two years he was there. There was never any smell there and he was always clean, groomed, and well cared for. Unfortunately, places like this no longer exist as elder care has become big corporate business.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Thanks for sharing this. Mother is using Medicaid
for technical nursing center for Alz/Dem and other health probs. What will happen to the millions who depend on this support if RepugaCare passes and destroys Medicaid?
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
I think we should use that as a talking point
to Republicans personally. They too have elderly parents and I wonder just how many realize this effects THEM, not just single women, kids or brown people. When grandma has to come home and live with them, how are they going to keep a job without hiring help? And even if it isn't their own grandma, when it's some white middle class family that's spent down all their assets taking care of that parent, what happens to them?
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
The most vile of diseases.
I could accept anything but.... Every time my aunt saw herself in a mirror she would ask: "who is that old woman looking at me?" She would also ask me if she was crazy. But hey, we have bombs to buy and wars to pay for. No way in hell we would invest in anything that is going to devastate families and bankrupt people.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Oregon has better elder care than most states, BUT
it is a profit making business and there are difficulties finding out the truth of a facilities care. The Oregonian (state paper) recently finished a series of articles.
It is a constant challenge to keep regulations, inspections ahead of business work a rounds for profit. It is a worthy cause, been involved off and on since the 80's building upon the efforts made those in the 60's and 70's. Starting loosing ground on quality care as medical care became one of the highest profit economic sectors in the US. Pharmaceuticals helped lead the way of inventing methods to circumvent regulations designed to improve quality of care and optimizing methods for profit taking. Keep in mid non-profit is a tax status, it does not indicate a corporation is not using profit taking methods to benefit individuals in salary, perks of the job and golden parachutes, and grow power for the corporation.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
I have never trusted the mental health care industry.
A disease destroyed part of my younger brother's brain. A few years later some well meaning mental health care "social workers" convinced my mother to have him committed to a state facility in Salem. They were supposed to provide a nurturing environment. They were supposed to help him be as much as he could be.
However, he became just another near-vegetable warehoused awaiting the inevitable end to minimal attention and maintenance. After a time my mother visited him and saw the torture in his eyes, and it pushed her a bit more into insanity. She picked him up and carried him out of that vile place. The staff members were quite upset with her. Mikey spend most of the rest of his life at home. The way he was treated convinced me that I would rather die than allow mental health care professionals to get their hands on me even for the most trivial of defects.
Some people don't respect or trust police, and I can, to a certain extent, understand their point of view because I don't trust mental health care professionals.
Interesting side notation: Ken Kesey published a novel in 1962 and the next year it was adapted into a play. I saw a student production of that play in 1972. A 1975 screen adaption won the "Big Five" Academy Awards. Please, believe me: The book and the play are much better than the movie.
I will never forget the Chief Bromden character, the final moments as he escaped were the freeing of my brother from that hellhole in Salem.
The mental health care professionals moved into the
geriatric care facilities as consultants, managers, regulatory over-site and business owners as the mental hospitals were closing. The model of health care you saw in Salem is still happening around this country and state. The specific drug target changes in the battle of limiting the use of chemical restraints but the problem stays the same. Whenever observation by regulators, family members or patient advocates diminishes the use or restraints goes up.
Pharmaceutical industry has created "safer" drugs to treat mental health and provides education courses for the medical profession. Primary care physicians now prescribe the majority of mental health drugs.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.