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SAVING GRACE |
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Activities |
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AGING WITH HUMOR |
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GOALS FOR SAVING GRACE |
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GRAY RIBBON CAMPAIGN |
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ASSISTED LIVING |
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PLEASE TAKE A FEW MINUTES
TO TAKE THIS INFORMAL POLL
THANK YOU.
"SAVING GRACE"
Please E-Mail Your Comments
to
"Saving Grace"
at
gracechild_3@hotmail.com
Include your state would be helpful.
With Your Permission
we would like to
publish your comments on this page.
Thank you.
"Saving Grace"
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RESPONSES FROM FAMILIES AND FRIENDS
"Saving Grace" has received many comments and stories
of families and friends of loved ones who have
attempted to find help from the ombudsman, a few have
positive accounts to share. Others, a vast majority
of others share stories as Pauline has.
This is a very SAD story from
a loving, caring and dutiful
daughter.
Please share your stories and e-mail
your responses to Pauline's story
and we will forward them to her.
Thank you.
grace@vcn.com
This is one subject which I am very familiar with,
I know all about the
Ombudsman, their practices and what they actually do,
and I will gladly tell
all I know of them, and what they put me through when
I advocated for my dear
mother the 4 1/2 years she was sentenced
to be in one of those human kennels,
and here goes:
First let me say, I thought nursing homes were
for our elderly and those who
are in need of care 24 hours,
and that they were treated with respect,
caring, and that those who worked in those
homes loved those in need and the
only agenda was to take care of them
in the manner that they themselves would
want, that they would protect them from harm,
allow them to have dignity,
allow them to have their relatives
with them as often or however long they
wished, and that those who worked
in these homes were people who were not
only licensed but that they were screened,
and evaluated as were supposedly
the nurses, doctors, directors and those
who owned the homes were regulated
by the State, which included
the wonderful advocates in the Ombudsman
program.
Was I in for a rude awakening.
For 2 1/2 years, I was made to leave at 8:30 P.M.
although my mother was in a
24 hour access facility (Skilled Nursing)
(what a joke)!
I was forced to
leave. No matter what I tried,
I complained to the Ombudsman, and to the
State Licensing and they didn't help in the least.
They seemed to me to be
siding with the facility.
In all actuallity, they did.
I have proof and
witnesses. My mother did not speak English,
she had dementia and could only
communicate with me.
She became childlike, and called me mamma.
She wanted
me to be with her and not to leave her side.
When they forced me to leave,
she would yell no! no! no! and she would
get so red in the face and she
looked as if she were going to have another stroke.
She had many seizures
and her condition worsened as the days went by.
She had many bruises, 2
black eyes, fingernail marks as if someone
purposely dug them into her skin
on her upper shoulder area.
No one ever could explain why or how they
happened. I know my mother was afraid of some
of the workers, especially one
of them and she used to turn my
mother's fan on her and open the window and
let the rain and wind blow on
her bare back while my mother was all perspired
as she had a feeding tube and
it made her perspire so badly. I had the nurse
put a little note on the drapery,
to please not open the window, and also a
note on the fan to not direct the fan
on my mother or to her roommate either.
They removed the note and once
they wrote a profanity by my signature.
Finally my mother passed away
from pneumonia which was
caused by the open
window and removal of the note
and no one knew who opened the window,
however, I knew the aid openned it
and she was the one my mother feared the
most.
Whenever I left a message
for the doctor to be aware that my mother's
pneumonia wasn't getting better,
she would ignore my messages. It was the
same as always, and finally when my
mother was so ill, and I had to demand
she go to the hospital, my mother died.
It seems Kaiser Hospital is
partially responsible for my mother's
demise as I had told the doctor many
times that the nursing home was
careless, neglectful and they weren't doing
their job and all she would ever say is,
if you keep complaining they will
put your mother out.
Back to the Ombudsman,
I called them on numerous occassions,
I gave them the facts,
and did they ever help us,
NO!
They were on the side of the nursing
home. I had scheduled an appointment
with the Nursing Home Administrator,
the nursing director,
the Ombudsman and had a few people with me,
and when I
arrived I was made to sit over an hour
to go into the office, and all the
while I thought the Ombudsman was
late in arriving for the meeting and that
is why I was made to wait so long,
well I soon found out what was going on,
the Ombudsman was in with the Administratore,
the Nursing Director and the
three of them were busy going over
what they were going to do about me.
When I started to go into the
office and the few people with
me were following,
they said, "oh no, you cannot
bring anyone in with you," of course I was
very upset and said why not and they responded with
"we will cancel the meeting, you have to come in alone,"
so I went in and openned my purse and
took out a recorder and put it up on the table
in front of me and when I said
if I couldn't have someone in
with me then I want to tape our conversation
the Ombudsmen quickly turned to the
Administrator and said "Do you think we
should allow her to tape us?"
and the Administrator said "NO."
So if that
wasn't a setup, and if the Ombudsman wasn't
siding with the nursing home,
then I would like to know wha
t that was all about and what that kind of hanky
panky was called.
Besides, I was told not
to call the Ombudsman office, I
was forbidden from calling,
they said I was upsetting everyone which isn't
true.
I wrote to the top Ombudsman person
in Sacramento and she sent me a
terrible letter and she also sided
with the nursing home and those in the
local Ombudsman office here in Vallejo, Ca.
Not only that, I went as far as
sending a letter to the Senator, Mike Thompson of Napa.
Did he help, no!
His secretary had a terrible attitude
and she was going to come to the
Ombudsman office for a meeting,
which I knew was another setup.
Oh, another
thing I need mentioning,
when my mother's roommate was going over to my
mother's bed and pulling on her feeding tube
and doing things to her and my
mother started to holler as I was down
the hallway leaving against my
mother's will, I ran back and
my mother was so upset, she was so red and
scared, I just couldn't leave her
as they would force me to.
Well, they
called the administrator and she had them
to call the police and when I said
I wouldn't leave, the administrator
had me placed in handcuffs, and as I am
disabled and had bad arthritis,
when the officer put my arms in back to
handcuff me, the pain was unbearable
and so I had to leave and all the while
I could hear my mother's screams.
When I said something to the Ombudsman,
that was all covered over too.
Just like everything else.
The only person who ever helped
me was a past Ombudsman, a John Duff who
finally came with me to the State
for a hearing and he was so intelligent and
knew I was advocating for my mother
and he knew just what goes on in the
nursing homes, and he help me to be allowed
to stay with my mother for
however long I wanted to stay or
when my mother wanted me to stay with her,
sometimes all night, they couldn't make me leave.
Unfortunately, John is no
longer an Ombudsman and anyway,
he wasn't liked very much because he was
honest, caring, and knew what should be done,
and the Ombudsman and the
nursing homes, they didn't want anyone
like him to be around, they wanted the
Ombudsman to have people as there
was and still is acting like advocates,
only they advocate for the nursing homes.
I honestly believe they are on the
take. I may be wrong, but something isn't right.
And the State Licensing is
the same way. They should abolish it all,
and start all over and put people
like us in charge, someone with no agenda,
no conflict of interest.
The whole system is crooked. They are murderers.
And it stems from way up at
the top. All the money given for campaigning,
they are all bought off. What
a crying shame. It is disgusting.
If I have all my faculties when and if I
need to go into one of those prisons,
I will definitely take my life.
And
this is what we come on this earth for,
to live wholesome, good lives, and
when we become old and need to be
taken care of, we are treated like garbage.
The Humane Society treats their animals better.
I hope I have given you some insight
into what we are dealing with. I have
many journals which I have kept,
I have photo's and some tapes of what goes
on.
I would love to write a book,
if there were someone out there to help me
put it together.
It would be a real horror story!
Sincerely,
Pauline Wagner
P.S. One final mention,
the Administrator and Nursing Director actually
threatened me if I would report
them to the State, they fabricated stories,
they would get some of the workers
and I guess some of the people there to
say I was making noise, or going into people rooms,
which were all untrue,
that is why I began taping them
and all the noises in the facility.
I was
somewhat intimidated by them and
fearful of them doing something to my
mother. I would go into my mother's
room and was afraid to be heard, and
whenever my mother acted up,
I begged her to be quiet so they would'nt say I
was making noise.
I also forgot to mention that my car
was scratched, with a
key or something.
That was to freighten me.
I actually feared they would
try to kill my mother in some way,
so they could be rid of me.
I often
wonder.
Thank you Pauline for sharing your story of grief, pain and anger.
It is always interesting to me
that when your elderly parent
is upset around a family member
it is the family member's
fault....when the elderly person
gets upset with the nursing home
staff it is the dis |
http://www.hhs.gov/progorg/oas/reports/aoa/d9600016.htm
Department of Health and Human Services
Office of Inspector General -- AUDIT
"State of Maryland's Ombudsman Program
for Processing Elder Abuse and
Neglect Complaints and Accuracy of
Geriatric Nurse Aide Registry,"
(A-12-96-00016)
November 28, 1997
----------------------------------------------------------
Complete Text of Report is available in PDF format
(2.3 mb). Copies can
also be obtained by contacting the
Office of Public Affairs at 202-619-1343.
---------------------------------------------------------------
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Ombudsmen play an important role in helping
to ensure that the elderly are
properly cared for and protected from abuse
in long term care facilities. In
Maryland's Montgomery County, however,
we found that the review and
reporting network did not provide
reasonable assurance that instances of
abuse occurring in long term care facilities
were properly reported and
resolved. Similar deficiencies were found
in other counties but to a lesser
degree. We also found that the
State Ombudsman had not conducted annual
monitoring reviews of local Ombudsman programs.
Finally, we found that the
Geriatric Nurse Aide (GNA) Registry,
which is supposed to record the history
of nurse aide abuses, did not always
record such information on individuals
who were found to have abused
residents of nursing homes. Among other
things, we recommended that
Maryland's Office on Aging (OoA) take action to:
(1) improve the GNA Registry to
include information on findings of abuse,
neglect, or misappropriation of property by a GNA,
(2) improve procedures
used to receive, investigate and
resolve complaints timely, and
(3) make the required annual monitoring
visits of local Ombudsman programs. The OoA
agreed with our recommendations and
stated they will work diligently to
implement them.
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