L’Observateur / July 5, 2000

DEAR EDITOR: Although, as Mr. Dorchess, executive director of the Louisiana Nursing HomeAssociation points out, some of our legislators are indeed going to bat to find financing for Medicaid, upon which funding many of our frail, vulnerable seniors need and surely depend on for care and services in nursing homes across the state – which these budget cuts have impeded! Robert Faucheux is one who has promised to step up to bat for these residents of which I am personally aware.

It takes more than just financing to protect seniors who are frail and vulnerable and unable to care for or protect themselves. I have seen elderlynursing home residents whose fingernails and toenails were so neglected they were curling backward and growing into patients’ toes and fingers, which were inflamed and infected.

When I expressed my anger over such just sheer neglect, I got told, “Oh, well.

The podiatrist comes by once a year to examine patients’ feet” by a nursing home administrator. I pointed out those with diabetes may have no toes orfeet by the time your podiatrist makes his next round, and got the sarcastic reply, “Well, if you are that concerned about it then you do something about it.” I did something about it so that they could walk.I saw 70 percent of patients on a hall served shoe leather tough chunks of meat with eggs and grits floating in butter, with no teeth, and butter knives only trying to cut their meat, get heartburn and acid indigestion every Sunday night.

I saw where an ulcer patient was served barbecue, pickles and meals laden with hot sauce when the order was for a bland diet. Trying to to get thesemenus changed to protect seniors took inviting the home’s administrator, not there Sunday nights, to come and join these seniors for Sunday night supper.

And when a mental patient with prior known violent outbursts administrators refused to transfer out went off the deep end and tried to kill other residents, I put my own life and health at risk and stood between the violent patient and the frail and vulnerable seniors. It cost me both my health andmy career, protecting seniors.

Because the Almighty Dollar was more important to the nursing home owners than the safety of its residents and its staff, and had the administrator acted in the best interest of frail and vulnerable seniors, this mental patient would have been sent months before to a more secure care facility, but was not! I also got a nursing assistant fired for ripping a sheet out from under a blind man with amputated legs, tearing his skin in the act. I challenge Mr. Donchessif he really does care and wants to protect our frail and vulnerable seniors, then stop the neglect, the abuse, and the disregard in some nursing home care facilities who put profit before proper nutrition and profit before basic needs of our seniors who must depend on staffs for their nutrition, medical care and personal well-being.

Yes, it takes funding to care for the elderly, the disabled and the frail and vulnerable. But it takes more than that, Mr. Dorchess. It takes qualified andcaring staff. Medically knowledgeable administrators who understand whatthose basic needs really are and competent, fully-trained and compassionate personnel to carry out those basic needs to make it all work.

Don’t shortchange our seniors by not visiting the homes on unannounced visits and really seeing these nursing homes you represent. Talk not only tothose in charge, talk to the teachers, the farmers, the firemen, police officers, the bakers, the carpenters, the seniors.

Learn what improvements are needed and then see to it that it gets done, so that they get the comfort, the security and safety, the personal basic needs they deserve in their elder years. Put them first!You have the power and the position to make a real difference in seniors’ lives, to oversee and change what is lacking and wrong in some nursing home facilities where our seniors reside. To the staffs not in this category, I thankyou for the tremendous job you do in caring for the frail and vulnerable.

Lillian Ridlen

LaPlace

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