Thursday, May 24, 2007
You've Pissed Off the Wrong Person
I am officially pissed off. I cannot stand the nursing home where my gram is trying to do her rehab. They have treated her like crap since the day that she got there and I am at my breaking point. I know that most nursing homes suck but Loretto is at the very top of the list. Let's see if I can remember all of their issues...
1.She gets left for an hour or more at a time by the elevator after they bring her back up from rehab. She is usually tired and sometimes in pain and all she wants to do is get back to her room and maybe to bed.
2.The food is disgusting. I wouldn't feed it to a dog! It is never on time and it is always cold. It looks like it has been reheated several times.
3.Along the same lines as #2 - they serve meals at ridiculous times. Breakfast is around 9 or 9:30am,lunch is around 12 or 1pm and dinner is around 6 or 7pm. Who thought of that time line???
4.Following #2 and #3 would be that she is lucky if they feed her. They "forgot" her dinner 2 nites in a row!!!Are they stupid?!?!? She was told that the kitchen was closed and that maybe they could find her some pizza. Ooh yum! Sounds real healthy.
5.She never gets her pain meds on time. It was supposed to be every 4-6 hours but it's more like when they feel like it. Luckily she hasn't been in too much pain lately.
6.They usually give sponge baths until they feel you are ready for a shower (which she finally got 2 days ago). They would walk in and hand her some water and paper towels and say "let us know when you're done." What!! Excuse me?!?! Do your job you lazy piece of garbage!!!
7.She sleeps on an air mattress. It deflated at 4:30am yesterday. She spoke to 4 different people and it wasn't fixed until noon. I think it would take all of 2 minutes to inflate it with the air compressor.
8.When you push the call button someone is supposed to respond in a timely manner. I do not consider 15 or 20 minutes later timely. What if she had a real emergency?? Apparently gossiping at the nurses station is more important than taking care of the patients.
9.Going along with #7 would be the absolute unprofessional actions of a certain nurse. When we returned from her dr appt yesterday we noticed that her mattress was deflating. So we called for a nurse. 15 minutes later one walked in. My gram explained the problem and what had happened the nite before and asked to have a new one before she went to bed. This nurse stood behind her with her arms crossed and staring off into space while she was explaining the problem. Her response was "I'll have to see if I can find one" and she left. I had it at that point and said to my gram that this was ridiculous. These "people" are supposed to be here to help you. I told her that I was sick of the way that she was being treated there. I went off for quite a bit. The hag was in the next room and had heard all that I said. I knew she was there and that's why I did it. 10 minutes later another nurse came in to check my gram's sugar. I told her about the mattress and the events of the nite before and she was very attentive. She said that she would call Jeff to find one because they didn't have any on her floor. The hag asked what she needed to call Jeff for and the nurse said that she had to get my gram something. So she says,"If you're looking for the mattress it's in the closet." You couldn't have told us that in the first place?!?! We sat there talking for a while and then in walks the hag wih a new mattress. It was in a roll in a bag. She throws it over my gram's head onto her bed and said,"There's your mattress for later." She turns to walk out and I said,"Are we supposed to blow it up ourselves?" She just kept walking. OK,THAT IS IT!!!!! She just pissed off the wrong person! She will be lucky if I don't have her job for that. It was totally uncalled for. I told the nurse when she came back in what happened and she said that she would take care of it. Well,that's not good enough for me. I will see to it that she is taken care of. When I got ready to leave my gram told me to behave myself. I don't know how she can put up with this! Unfortunately I had to behave because that hag was nowhere to be found. But there's always today. She can run but she can't hide.
This list could go on forever. The point is that my gram is not getting the care that she deserves and we are all but helpless to do anything about it. She isn't quite strong enough to go home yet. So our only option is to raise hell every time we see something going on that shouldn't be. I'm sure most of these people in Loretto don't have families to do that for them. My gram does and we will continue to do what is necessary to make sure that she is comfortable while she is there. God help anyone that doesn;t see to the same thing.
Ok...I think I am done...for now...Labels: family
