Can we feed the Family?

[dcnballmom]

I work in LTC - and have a resident whose wife comes in right after breakfast and stays with her husband until after supper. She wanted to keep him at home but was not able to do his occasional episodes of confusion, but while she is there she prefers to care for him herself and asks for help very rarely - she lets me know when she feels he need pain medication or his blood sugars are low. In my facility we are given a half hour for lunch and offered the same menu as thr residents for "free" - even though we lose that half hour of work time. My GNA's and myself had been skipping lunch, making out a request for a tray and giving it to this lady, because she is there and we do not feel that she should have to pay for it when we want to give it to her so she does not have to pay 3 dollars for a guest tray, which is also the same foods the residents have for that meal. Today my adminstrator tells me that I am not allowed to do this anymore, that she will have to pay for her meals. I can tell from observation that these folks do not have lots of money to spend, and my feeling is that if she is there caring for her husband, the least we can do is feed her lunch. I am a little peeved at this - and not sure why if I get a lunch and I dont want it why it is not right for her to have it instead of my tossing it in the garbage - which is what I did with it today. How do other facilities handle this situation, and do you think I am wrong for giving this lady something to eat?

[chuck1234]

Without these fat cats, I will be out of work tomorrow.

Have you given a fat cat a kiss lately????

[jill48, ASN, RN]

Your administrator is an ASS.

[chuck1234]

Your administrator is an ASS.

Very funny!!!

[Lisa CCU RN, RN]

Your administrator is an ASS.

:yeahthat: ......

[LydiaNN]

Without these fat cats, I will be out of work tomorrow.

Have you give a fat cat a kiss lately????

You don't give yourself much credit. Without me and my kind, these fat cats wouldn't have an empire to oversee. If someone's going to do any kissing, they can kiss my posterior.

[chuck1234]

You don't give yourself much credit. Without me and my kind, these fat cats wouldn't have an empire to oversee. If someone's going to do any kissing, they can kiss my posterior.

Chicken or egg???

[LydiaNN]

Egg, sunnyside up please. I had chicken for lunch.

[JeanettePNP, MSN, RN, NP]

I use to work at a public school.... (just to show how jaded our society is) there was one kid in particular who's parents were VERY VERY poor and Very VERY proud, would not allow the child to be put on free meals program. The kid would bring lunches of pretty much nothing.. sometimes just a piece of cheap lunch meat.. no bread. A few times he brought instant potato flakes and added water from the fountain. Other times he would have something to eat that was sufficiently nutritious .. just depended on the money flow for the poor parents that particular week....

ANYWAYS, a bunch of the staff got together and put money in a fund for him to have a hot meal on the days that the parents could not afford anything...... WELL the school district did not like that very much, we were all reprimanded and threatened to be suspended. Something about showing favoritism and this kid was not the only kid out there that was hungry. Although its a very small school only a handful of students compared to other schools, and all the other children were either feed, or on the lunch program.

Just to show that if our schools are not compassionate about hunger why would some corporate fat cat be???

This is so sad. There was no way to register the child for the free lunch without the parents consent?

When I was a kid my parents income was too high to qualify for the school hot lunch but they couldn't quite afford to pay for it themselves either... it's hard bringing a sandwich for lunch when everyone else is eating a hot meal. (and those lunches sure smelled good too!)