80 year old man suffers abuse in nursing home

An 80 year old man, suffering from dementia and paralysis was admitted to St. Francis Home in Thomas Township, because his wife could no longer care for him. The family was surprised to find that two workers abused him in December because it was one of the cleanest and best nursing homes that they had found. The Saginaw News reported that the family was very forgiving saying that most of the staff was very kind and that “every place has bad apples.” It seems that the aide used a cell phone to video him naked from the chest up, claiming it was to show that she wasn’t abusing him. The state report shows abuse including “flicking the nose” and hitting a female resident in the arm, as stated in the article. St. Francis home faces a $129,000 fine and denials in Medicaid admissions as they work diligently to solve this problem. Sister Margaret Mary Turner doesn’t agree with the fines and calls them “staggering” as reported by the Saginaw News. She has fired three aides and claims that the home acted promptly in doing so. The family is leaving the man at St. Francis home because they believe that the home is under closer scrutiny and that they are doing their best to correct the problem. They do not plan to file any lawsuits. I believe that the home did act as promptly as they could and that by fining them this unbelievable amount, it will only hurt the residents. It might even close this nursing home down. I have spoken with a resident of the St. Francis nursing home who said that they fired some of the best and nicest aides. Maybe the aide was trying to video some really bad behavior of a resident and used poor judgment in doing so. This still doesn’t excuse hitting or video taping a patient. I think that the aide should have reported the problems she was having and she should have been moved to other patients. I think that in any hospital or nursing home you are going to run into problems such as these, but fining them is just not the answer, after all, it was the employee that did wrong, not the establishment.


Source: Jill Armentrout | The Saginaw News
Sunday March 01, 2009, 1:51 AM
.

Unfortunately, there are people like the this in every nursing home or hospital. To them it is just a job and they get irritated if the patient is not compliant or is not easy to care for. When my mom was in the hospital she had good nurses, aides and such and then she had nurses and aides that were just there because it was their job. Some were rough with my mom and others had such a way with her even in her most trying time. The ones that were not caring for my mom the way that they should have were reported. This is why I changed my profession. I know that I would care for any patient the way that I wanted my mom to be cared for. It is hard to take care of patients that have dementia, alzheimers or are just plain sick but you have to keep in mind that if you were to ask them if they wanted to live their life like this, what do you think their answer would be... no. To work in the healthcare field you have to have patience and it makes me sick to think that the elderly are so vulnerable to abuse and cannot fight back or even in some cases tell anyone that they are being abused. So the aides that were fired should have been fired and should not be allowed to work in the healthcare field. The fine was a little steep, but St. Francis home is responsible for their employees, even though they cannot control what they do.

I think that the nursing home should keep a closer eye on the nurse aids that work there. They should also be found guilty in a court of law before it is stated in the newspaper that the place was abusing patients. My girlfriend works in a nursing home and I hear all kinds of stories about people that do not do their job correctly. I am sure that this is most likely the same way at almost every nursing home. It is a tough job. Taking care of people with Alzheimer’s and dementia is difficult and takes a great deal of patience. They hit nurses spit on them call them names and forget they did it 15 minutes later. Sometimes it will take 4 nurses to get someone out of bed, and sometimes those nurses get hurt. What I am trying to get at is that sometimes it takes a little bit of force, and the judicial system needs to make a ruling on that, not some reporter.

This comes as a complete shock to me. My great grandma was put into a nursing home, because she had dementia and no one could take care of her, keep her under control anymore. We always expected that she was getting the best care, while she was staying at the nursing home. To think that people are so horrible that they would even think to treat someone that cant take care of themselves in that way, is just shocking to me. You wouldn't want someone to do that to our family members, if they were in a nursing home, so why would you do that to them?????