by Jack
The care facilities (rest homes) and rehab centers are experiencing a population surge with seniors like never before, especially with the aging baby boomers. This means a number facilities are trying to do more with less.
Chalk this up (doing more with less) to the overlap phase, before hiring can catch up with the larger patient census. That’s bad enough, but if you introduce a basket of impossible to comply with regulations from the State of California, regs that far exceed any sense of reasonableness, you have real trouble!
Let me give you a few examples:
1. Facilities always have a certain number of patients who are completely out of it mentally. Be it Alzheimer’s, dementia or brain damage, there’s a fair number of them that require heavy medication and/or restraints to avoid injury.
These folks have lost the ability to care for their own safety or the safety of others, but the state rules are allowing them to get into trouble. A few years ago these patients were in restraints to keep them from falling out of bed or getting out of their wheel chair and doing a face plant.
Falls for these fragile people can be extremely damaging, but the State of California in their zeal for a liberal utopia took away the restraints and medications that keep them safe from themselves and that is beyond wrong….it is an outrage.
No doubt, the lawyers/legislators thought they were doing a good thing by passing legislation that said a patient has a ‘right” to fall out of bed or their wheel chair and therefore facilities can’t restrain them or medicate them to keep them still.
So, now we are seeing staffers racing to a wheelchair alarm or a bed alarm hoping to catch the patient before they fall and bust themselves up on the floor. If they are in time they put them back into the wheelchair or bed and 5 minutes later the people are getting up again. And so it goes, over and over, all day long. This is absurd. But, when the staff has too many alarms going off at the same time it is complete chaos. The elderly or mentally incompetent patients wind up with serious injuries. Then they are rushed off to the emergency room via ambulance…this part isn’t cheap either. But, I suppose some lawyer will profit off it somewhere…slip and fall cases are always in demand.
2. Extended care facilities or any care facility need to be safe for the patients and the staff. Fragile patients need to be kept away from dangerous mentally incompetent patients, but there are too many stupid State regulations that work against this. They force out-of- control patients to be under-medicated and this results in risk to that patient and other patients and staffer. A few months back I wrote about a lady who was nearly murdered by her roommate, the families of both were horrified, but according to state law this incident was not preventable, it had to happen first then action could be taken. How absurd!
It is not uncommon to walk down the halls of rehab hospitals and nursing homes and hear screams for “help” and they may go on for hours. The patients are completely out-of- their-minds and have no idea what they need, where they are or any cognitive thinking, but thanks to good old State of CA, staff can’t give them enough medication to calm them down.
The State’s logic is you can not warehouse heavily medicated patients just for the staff’s convenience! Well, what about the patient’s? Screaming bloody murder for hours is not the sound of a happy person, it’s better they were medicated to the point they are passive. It’s inhumane to let them languish, feeling frustrated, angry or fearful when meds could at least give them peace and quiet. 
So, for the most part we’re talking about elderly people in the last few months of their life who have already checked out mentally, but their bodies are still functioning. I ask you, what kind of life is that? Is this where you would want to be? No, of course not and yet the State and the lawyers won’t allow you the medication and the physical restraints to keep you from harm. Instead we have this abomination where elderly suffer sever falls, broken bones, and this causes them no end of pain and distress.
I’ve heard too many horror stories and witness plenty too, that would shock you to the point of never wanting your loved ones to be in care home again! But, it’s not the fault of the facilities, it’s due to the over-regulation and micro-management of the State of California. This State has gone way beyond the helping patients part and inadvertently caused them harm. This is so typical of big government.
If there was any justice the asinine bureaucrats behind these laws and regulations would all be fired for incompetence or better yet, be forced to work 6 months in a rehab or extended care facility and see what they have done. Let them labor under the unfair rules they make these dedicated, hard working care givers abide by. People are needlessly suffering and the public should be demanding change in Sacramento.
Ooooh, Mommy … how I do want to dose you with Risperdal and tie you in a chair … and see if I can’t get you to reconsider your position.
Fool.
That was my impulsive response.
Jack, do I take it that you’ve been spending time in the nation’s elder care facilities? And that, just as you deplore the mixing of races, you feel that sentient elders should be segregated from the droolers and/or screamers? Well, just as wealthy white folk can gate themselves in their youth, wealthy elders can pay for home care.
Do you remember what I asked you just a few posts ago: what on earth makes you think you’re in the rich category? Your Whiteness? Dream on.
Dems seek to lift all boats. Repugs, that is most decidedly not their thing.
Dems seek to sink all boats…shared misery.
We’ve seen the prequel. Eight years of socialist thinking has created a wealthy elitist class of smug control freaks and a growing number of lower class, out of work citizens watching as their freedoms and right to proerty and speech is put on the road to decimation.
No. Thank. You!!!
You know Tina , Lippy may just be feeling
Election results sadness, I hear its going around this year. Some Political humor maybe just the ticket:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahkMA6JPOHU
It sure gave me a chuckle …………
Right on Harold, the compilation is very funny.
It’s also pretty sick.
Never have so many been so wrong about so much.
Never have so many been such sore losers.
Never haves so many been so arrogant and elitist.
Never have so many made so many (fake news) excuses.
No wonder so many are sucking their thumbs and demanding cocoa and blankies.
Once more a comment from the voids of common sense and a snarky insult to cover such a slur, vacant of any thought or possible experience with the subject.
Just more Lippy blow hard Liberal justification for poorly created regulations from a party of ineffectual programs.
Jacks article is indented to create understanding of a problem that will be increasing in coming years as the Baby Boomer generation ages.
Lippy consistently just strikes out blindly at anything not supportive of her closeted socialist party.
Tina is correct, Dems of late are only adding to the misery of they are infecting within America. Theirs no longer can be called a party of social compassion, a title that better suits their goals would be social disruption.
Lippy’s ilk has spawned into a political machine design to rule over all, at any cost, without respect for the needs of all classes within America.
Lippy is entitled to her opinions, but never the less, Lippy simply comes across of needing “restraints” regarding her own civility.
Harold … I frightened you. I’m sorry. But lashing out at me doesn’t really resolve the issue, an issue I suspect you are much closer to than I am.
You must resolve to “see it coming” and make what plans you can. Trust me, Chester’s screamers refused to look … and are, in fact, quite happy to sit in their chairs and scream the rest of their life away.
But I gotta tell ya, Jack’s suggestion that they should be dosed so the rest of us don’t have to listen, truly creeps me out … as it should you.
Libby engages in fake news.
Jack’s concern was safety and peace for the patient and those around him including care givers. A few excerpts:
Your narky suggestion does show how your mind works. You’re happy to force people to wear seatbelts and helmets for their “protection.”
You’re all for letting people self medicate with a substance that has the potential to blacken their lungs and destroy their minds while demanding nonsmoking is the law of the land.
You lack common sense. You’re just a far left contrarian filled with derision and hate for anyone who dares to think sensibly. And I imagine you don;t give a rip about the patients…it’s all about the snobbery and arrogance that marks your politics.
First, let me thank those who have expressed compassion and concern for our elderly suffering needlessly because of democrat regulations. Next, Libby, your comments were horrible. Why are you so bitter and mean? I point out problems with under-medicating and lack of injury prevention restraints and you turn it in something about “whiteness” and money? I don’t understand that, my mind just refuses to work that way.
Yes, Libby the older I get the more time I find myself visiting friends and family in care homes. I have family working in them too. Apparently you do not or you might have tempered your unwarranted asault on my character.
I see frail, fragile patients mixed with violent patients all the time, sometimes there are terrible consequences. Why? Docs are fearful of prescibing too much medication, so they tend to under-medicate and the results are equally as bad, if not worse.
I hope you have the privilage of knowing what that under-medication feels like some day. Because of the laws in CA, our dedicated healthcare staffers are placed at greater risk from rushing to patient alarms trying to restrain or catch them before a slip and fall. Or they are hurt lifting or holding wildly flailing patients who can’t be restrained… oh, I wish you could work a few shifts to see what thats like Libby.
Well, at least those people in the photos are smiling…although about what I do not know.
Personally, I never want to go into such a facility and if I ever reach the stage of screaming without knowing why I want Jack to take my gun and put a bullet through my head.
I understand exactly what Chesterfield is saying and I would ask for the same thing. It’s not an option for everyone, but personally I don’t want to spend months lying in a bed prolonging a painful, miserable death.
There’s absolutely nothing worse than seeing a beloved family member with dementia or Alzheimer’s lose their grip on reality and become a shadow of their former self, whether they’re in a care facility or in home care.
Period!
In Taxifornia, even though there may be a DNR in place for a care facility resident, Taxifornia regulations REQUIRE the care facility to have an ambulance called and sent to the ER whenever a resident is unresponsive. That makes the DNR worthless and ignores the resident or their family’s wishes.
Only exception is when the resident is under Hospice care.
J, that is not a California thing, that is an everywhere thing. If you want your DNR to follow you wherever you wind up … and be enforced, you want federal action … you want to support the ACA.
Yes because ONLY the ACA should have the authority.
This is one of the many reasons the ACA MUST GO!
By definition a DNR has the full weight of law behind it. Most are part of a last will and testament. If states have laws that conflict something needs to be done to clean up the laws. But liability comes into play for care facilities. Relatives are required to sign forms about their relatives when they’re placed in hospice so the facility is covered on that front, not so in senior care facilities.
“By definition a DNR has the full weight of law behind it.”
Not if the hospital you get transported to does not have it on file, electronically available. And actually its HIPAA, not the ACA that covers this. And you do have to be transported. There is not a nursing home in the country that is permitted to just let you expire. If you can’t get it done while they’re not looking, it’s off to the hospital, or, if you are lucky enough to live in California and have made your arrangements, Hospice care. Most of the rest of the country is very backward in this respect.
And Jack, only in a decidedly fascist state are people drugged into gorkdom for the convenience of others.
At one time a few years ago, Enloe Hospital had a policy that even though they had a notarized DNR on file for a frequent patient, Enloe required a family member to “activate it” EACH time that patient came in. It took 3 extra steps on the hospital computer to find out if a DNR was even on file!
When I found this out, I complained to hospital administration, and found that this was ENLOE policy, not state rules.
Now at Enloe, it’s much easier to know if a patient has a DNR on file and I believe they no longer require “activation.” but if you have an elderly family member in Chico, you’d better find out BEFORE they have to go to the hospital!
And, you must face the fact that your delusional elder is legally entitled to renege on the DNR … and this is just the most fun, believe me.
But, tempting though it is, we will not go down the road Jack proposes, and deny them the right to do so.
Offered without comment.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/12/11/cried-all-way-home-santa-claus-grants-final-wish-dying-child/95315536/
Not all Christmas stories are jolly. What a gift this wonderful man gave that sweet child.
Thanks for sharing RHT447.
Funneeeee…Miss “You’ll do it and like it!” lecturing Jack on the authoritarian fascist state.
At least half of the liberal electorate in Hollywood beg their doc’s and are quite familiar with being “drugged into gorkdom.”
Self medication in it’s many and various forms are liberally applied weekly by ordinary citizens and others are Rx’d even though they haven’t yet become victims of their own deteriorating minds.
As always Libs is just throwing spit balls.
As always, having nothing on point with which to counter, you change the subject.
Feeble.
I just finished reading your reply. I do spend time in nursing homes. I have traveled around California working in over 15 nursing home and rehab facilities in the last 3 years. I am sickened and angry the way the good old state of California has forced these nursing homes to operate. Lack of staff, under medication, lack of safety restraints, its disgusting and it has nothing to do with wealth or white people. Caregivers get the #@$% beat out of them on a regular basis. I have been punched, bit and kicked many times. I have been straight out slugged in the face by a man and pregnant workers have been kicked in the stomach by some violent patients. The patients are at risk here too. i’ve seen plenty of people in there with money and parked right next to a poor person, so you don’t know what you are talking about and I do.
Sandi, your blindness is insufferable. The State of California mandates minimum staffing levels in the state’s nursing homes, and the capitalists, out to their maximize profit, expend the minimum required by law, not one soul more, and so you are on your own, safety-wise.
Not until you acknowledge the true culprits, and reach out to the SEIU, is anything going to change.
Seriously, and by the Goddess … how can you be so dim? I will repeat it until somebody hears it: the republic cannot survive this degree of stupidity.
Libby your ignorance is epic! Your party make it impossible to do business and hire people at good wages for the average business person. You don’t have the slightest idea what it takes to run one of those facilities. You’ve never been in a position to have to comply with the mounds of regulations or the disrupting influence of them. Unfortunately you’re also unwilling to listen to the concerns of those who do. Then you have the unmitigated gall to think of them as stupid.
Until you’ve walked a mile…
“The State of California mandates minimum staffing levels…”
And the state of California and the federal government impose other regulations that make it impossible to afford the staff you would normally hire for maximum high standards of care. Government thinks it knows better but it doesn’t. Government operates in the static world where everything remains the same but the real world doesn’t work that way.
Libby you are intellectually LAZY. It’s easier to use that “capitalists” label than to understand the real concerns of real people. It’s much easier to cop an attitude than to actually get you are destroying the small business persons ability to employ people at decent wages.
The republic, in case you haven’t noticed, has been not surviving under the policies and regulations your party has imposed over the last eight years. It takes a lot to destroy a middle class in America. What you’ve done is criminal.
Time to own up, humble yourselves, and open the space to experience and learn.
Used to think Libby had reached the bottom of the barrel, but her last comment reaches a new low.
However, she does represent a LOT of why TheDonald won in November.
Well said, Sandi!!!
You just said a mouthful, clever. Epic stupidity has indeed put a Neanderthal in the White House.
“And the state of California and the federal government impose other regulations that make it impossible to afford the staff you would normally hire for maximum high standards of care.”
Like what, for instance?
The regulations in Obamacare alone force huge barriers on hiring and wages.
American Action Forum:
Nursing Homes, Tina. We are talking about nursing homes, and you are supposed to be coming up with onerous regulations pertaining. But you can’t. Because, while all the state regulations pertaining most certainly cut into profits, they enforce a bare minimum in the way of decent care.
Go check out Ms. Adele’s B-Day in USA Today today. She has to be cajoled into the chair every morning … and the highlight of her day is going back to bed. Sounds much too much like my life … and is it worth anybody’s tax dollars? No, we must not go there, Jack. It’s not a prudent use of resources. It’s not fiscally sound. And it is most certainly not convenient. But we will do it anyway … or cease to be human.