Elder Care Concerns and Information
Many families have to go through quite the adventure to ensure that their elder loved ones receive the care that they need. In one case, a man and his sister had to go through a three-year adventure to find the right care, but they couldn’t find what they were looking for, even with a pool of financial resources and both having experience in the field.
This has resulted in the pair, as well as many others, to conclude that the elder care system in Minnesota and throughout the country is not a caring system. Instead, it is driven by caution, as safety is a commodity that is overvalued. As a result of averting risk, older people have been deprived of the care that they need. There is also the fact that depriving older people of care leads to a whole different set of liabilities.
Even EMTs that transport the elderly to emergency rooms are risk averse. Their response is to take the patient to an emergency room so they can be evaluated. If a patient is taken to an emergency room with something, such as bruises, they tend to have to wait a long time because they are not considered a high priority patient.
Because of this, families research the nursing homes that are going to be the best for their families to then find they cannot get their loved one into that nursing home for one reason or another. That leaves them with the nursing homes that have a history of infectious diseases, abuse, and neglect.
More Elder Care Information
All in all, it comes down to quality of life. To have some sort of quality of life, the elderly needing care has to have access to proper care. In the case of the brother and sister, they researched nursing homes and they did manage to get their mother into one of the most reputed nursing homes in their area. That is when the medical staff noticed that their mother would occasionally choke while she ate and they were concerned with her inhaling her food. They placed her on a soft diet with thickened liquids, which removed one of her pleasures and that was drinking hot tea. Because the tea wasn’t thick enough, she would choke on it. The food that she was fed was essentially unpalatable.
So the pair met with the medical and nursing staff and they offered to sign waivers of liability so their mother could enjoy the things that she wanted to enjoy. Once again, they stated that they were not able to care for her if they didn’t keep her on the diet that their mother hated so much.
It is not that the individuals working in these nursing homes and others were mean individuals. They were simply intimidated by the fears of being considered neglectful. They are more or less the product of a system that has not been as effective as it could be and that has stymied any spirit of innovation within the industry.
There is also the fact that older people are abused. It happens in Minneapolis, St. Paul, all throughout Minnesota, and in the United States. However, there are advocates for these individuals taking informed risks in order to preserve their quality of life.
Report Elder Care Concerns to Abuse Hotline
For more information from the Minnesota Department of Health, Office of Health Facility Complaints concerning nursing homes, assisted living and other elder care providers view resolved complaints at the MDH website.
If you have concerns about financial exploitation or any other form of elder abuse or neglect contact Minnesota Elder Abuse Attorney Kenneth LaBore toll free at 612-743-9048 or toll free at 1-888-452-6589 or by email at KLaBore@MNnursinghomeneglect.com.
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