Location: Florida, USA (nursing home is in Georgia, USA).
Hello, everyone. My sweet grandmother is 102 years old, and in her youth was a refined, dignified woman. Age has taken it’s toll on her, as it would on anyone who’s been on this earth for over a century, and as her needs evolved my family (my mother and my aunt, her two daughters) elected to help her move from a retirement community to the associated assisted living community.
This community is exhorbinently expensive. We’re talking easily $8,000+ per month, on top of which we’ve hired a full-time personal caregiver. Fortunately, before my grandfather passed at the ripe age of 97, he set up a litany of investments and other financial securities to ensure that my grandmother and his daughters would be well taken care of for life.
In the 5+ years my grandmother has been in assisted living, she has been humiliated, neglected, and hurt by the staff at this place. To name a few incidents:
– One of the staff members created a paper hat and she and the other staff members put in on my grandmother’s head to use as a target for paper ‘ring toss’. They thought it was so funny that they took photos themselves.
– Over medicating my grandmother to the point of delirium because she was roaming too often at night. This caused severe dizziness, leading to several dangerous falls during the evening. They denied they were giving her medication at all, and claimed the falls were the result of her own mobility. They then restrained her in her bed, resulting in bruising on the arms and legs. Once they stopped medicating her, she stopped falling.
– They’ve tied her to her wheel-chair using blankets so she wouldn’t be able to try to get up and walk.
– They left her in her bed, immobile, in a dirty diaper for over 24 hours despite the care requirement being that she’s seen to at LEAST every 8. She was crying, cold, and soiled when the private caretaker came to assist her in the morning.
– They’ve continuously lied to us about her injuries, some of which have been severe (significant cuts, ect; they’ll often say “they don’t know when they happened” or “they happened at [such and such a time]”, but our private caregiver has been taking photographs since this bullshit began that proves they’re wrong/lying. These injuries have ranged from “unsightly” to “nauseatingly gruesome”, and while some injuries are expected given how thin her skin is, we’re talking 6 inch tears/cuts, widespread lacerations, etc.
– Most recently, they left her uncovered in an exposed diaper, unattended to, in the main hall next to their unmanned nurses’ station, without anything to keep her decent (a blanket or otherwise) in the middle of the night.
I am my grandmother’s only granddaughter, and I am fucking furious. The only reason we know about any of this occurring is because we as a family can afford to hire a separate private caregiver. My heart twists knowing that she can’t be the only person in this facility being treated this way, and that those other residents don’t have someone like our caregiver looking after them and preventing this bullshit.
My mother and aunt are worried about suing while she’s alive because they believe it may cause the facility to further compromise her quality of care. They already had a civil servant come to assess the place, which resulted in a mass-firing and the appointment of a new director (who is doing his best, admittedly), but still. There is NO amount of elder abuse that is acceptable– I know that taking care of geriatric patients can be challenging, and exhausting, but not only should this not be happening at ALL, it certainly shouldn’t be happening at a place that is charging us a premium for what they advertise as “excellent care”.
Is there any recourse for us? We don’t have an interest in financial compensation, but we do have an interest in making this damn nursing home do their job as promised. The amount of stress, pain, and strife I’ve seen my mother and aunt go through has been devastating, and I can tell it’s deeply impacted my mother’s view of aging to the point where she’s remiss to let herself get that old.
If we were to pursue a case, could we? What would we need? What could we meaningfully accomplish?
We trusted this place to take care of one of our most cherished and vulnerable family members when we no longer could, and they act like we’ll just forget about her and let them do whatever the hell they want. She deserves dignity, even if she can no longer advocate for herself.
[Additionally, if anyone is wondering why we don’t move my grandmother out of this facility: please understand that she’s lived in this town for over 60 years and has friends, family, and her caretaker/primary care physician here. Moving her at this point would be devastatingly stressful for her, and there are precious few options that can provide the level of care she needs. It is the best option available for her at this time.]
EDIT: I forgot to add that my family has contacted a few lawyers, but most were reluctant to take on the case. I expect it may have been due to how my aunt phrased things; both my mother and aunt are so emotionally invested that they have a difficult time explaining this situation.]