JacksonCare

If I were u I'd call a pet sitting service to come everyday while the pt is in the hospital. Just about all medium and large cities have pet sitting services plus alot of animal hospitals have workers who do pet sitting as a side job.

Some of these incidents sound terrible. It would be useful to hear details about what happened immediately before the assaults occurred. Were the patients just sitting there quietly, or did anything lead up to the assaults? Not a complete picture of what happened before the assaults, only what happened during and after.

One my my younger sister's closest friends has a history of heart trouble and had an episode of atrial fib last nite in which the paramedics were called. This morning on her way to work she stopped by her cardiologist's office and was told to come back at 1 pm. When she arrived some nurse told our friend that "she'd looked up her medical records" and that the problem "was not an emergency" and that "she'd put her in for tomorrow". This is just another disgusting, infuriating example of a nurse intruding into a patient's life and blocking access to medical care. My friend never gave permission to the nurse to get into her chart, plus it's not the nurse's right to pass judgment on what qualifies as an emergency. Certainly her young children were traumatized seeing Mom have an episode of atrial fib and an ambulance at their home. Why couldn't that nurse have shown some compassion to our friend and her children and not interfered w her appt? And why did that nurse wait until our friend arrived from work and then spring this news? Why didn't she call immediately so our friend would not have made an unnecessary trip and wasted a vacation day? Us working class folks have a finite number of vacation and sick days, so taking it upon herself to reschedule our friend to tomorrow would have necessitated a second vacation day, scarce for working stiffs like us. Most of my and my Dad's doctors are in solo or small group practices where secretaries and medical assistants facilitate medical care instead of blocking access. That nurse who read our friend's chart and then took it upon herself to interfere w a sick person seeing the cardiologist is just one of many examples of nurse's lack of respect for patients and their families, especially young children who want Mom to see the doctor ASAP without interference by some nurse.

Why don't the nurses simply apologize and make amends for the delays they subjected the grandmother and granddaughter to, and then move on to improving customer service? Waitstaff at busy restaurants routinely handle several tables with multiple customers with multiple orders. Why can't nurses learn by the example of the food service and hospitality industries? They set a good example.

Such lack of compassion for the sick grandmother and worried granddaughter. At least it's clear who the enemy is.

Our Dad is paying roughly $30K per year for part-time home health aides, plus my sisters and I each chip in $5K each to help pay for the aide and various household and medical expenses. Apart from Dad's occasional short-term hospital stays partly paid for by Medicare, no one in my family has ever rec'd any handouts from the govt. Apart from the military, the 3 largest taxpayer supported programs are social security, Medicaid and Medicare. The majority of Medicaid expenditures go to nursing homes instead of paying for preventive and basic pediatric care for children whose entire lives are ahead of them. If the 4 members of my family are paying in the middle five figures all out of pocket, then WHY should our taxes go to pay for other people's parents who are in nursing homes? Yes, it is my business how my taxes are spent, and while I'm glad to have taxes for the military, police and fire dept as well as innocent children with their whole lives ahead of them, why should I have to pay for long tem care expenses of other people when we're paying in the five figures out of pocket? Families should take care if their own, and those without children should buy long term care insurance and save for the future. I strongly resent getting no help for our Dad while other people get lavish handouts from the govt, medicaid pts. The nh field is recession proof, and while the wages are pathetic for the pink collar workers, it provides steady employment for people unable to make it in competitive, challenging fields.

I whole-heartedly agree w some of the posters who've pointed out how some old people have been abusive to their children and do not deserve to have loving caregivers. If someone has been abusive or destructive they definitely deserve to be gotten rid of in a nursing home and maybe even let the nh staff mistreat the abusive oldster as payback for what they've done in the past. However, how can anyone w a heart put an innocent disabled child or innocent but frail old person into a nh? The key to whether an old person should b kept at home is whether they deserve loving attentive care at the end. For typical frail elderly people w no prior hx of abuse to their children the only responsible decision is to keep them at home and find a job w flexible hours so you can be at home part time and hire an aide for when you're at work. The Census reports an increase in multiple generational households made up of two or more generations of adults which indicates that some cultures do have family values and respect for their parents. It seems that mainstream non-minority, non-immigrant cultures are most likely to take the easy way out and put their parents into a nh. Alot of dual careers couples who claim to be unable to care for elderly parents use the wife's income for ski trips, vacations in Europe and Mexico, private schools & colleges, gas guzzling SUV's and high tech entertainment systems.

Several of the pro-nursing home posters mentioned that their "loved" ones, either child or elderly parent, died while in the nursing home, and I wonder if anyone has ever considered the possibility their family member died as a RESULT of the shoddy "care" and heartbreak of being abandoned by their family? Fifty years ago elderly parents and grandparents lived in multiple-generational homes where the grandchildren learned to respect and value their elderly family members. I've always been perplexed about pro-nursing home people talking about how people have their own families to care for, as if that's an excuse for dumping elderly parents into a nursing home? Don't people realize that elderly parents and grandparents are legitimate family members, too? They are setting a bad example of family values to take the easy way out and put their elderly family members in nursing homes. As for adult children needing to work, I realize that men with families to support need to work as do single women without a husband, father or male relative to support them, but a large number of women who should stay at home taking care of their kids and parents place an inordinate emphasis on careers at expense of family. One of the posters was right on target about how in Asian and southern European societies people take the high road, not the easy road, and show personal responsibility by taking care of their elderly parents. The easy way is not always the right way, and it is a sign of selfishness and weakness to be unable or unwilling to care for ones parents. If there's a family with four adult children, why can't the men with families and single women hold jobs outside the home and let the married women contribute by working inside the home taking care of their parents and grandparents? It also burns me up to no end to have to pay taxes to support the Medicaid program, most of which is spent on nursing homes, instead of providing financial assistance for home care. I am a caregiver to my elderly father and pay out of pocket for home health workers on days I'm in the office, and my employer let's me work from home 3 days a week. My sisters and I plus our Dad are paying in the upper five figures on home health care plus having our hard earned money be funneled away in taxes supporting Medicaid for lazy people who've gotten rid of their parents and disabled kids by putting them into long term "care" facilities. These places do not provide care, they simply warehouse the pts and provide a recession proof job for their employees.