June 7, 2009
They say getting old ain’t for sissies. Boy, they’re not kidding.
Especially in a state that has essentially abandoned its task of protecting old people in the very facilities and hospitals where they need the greatest care.
Last October, Gov. Schwarzenegger “saved” taxpayers $3.8 million a year by cutting all the state’s funding to the Ombudsman program, which exists in every county using mostly volunteers to visit nursing home patients and check out abuse and neglect complaints.
The idea was that since the Health Department already does yearly inspections, that’s good enough.
Yeah, right.
Aside from the fact that all state departments are strapped for people and money making even minimal inspections a tall order, yearly inspections just don’t cut it.
It wasn’t a routine state inspection that uncovered a nursing home in the Kern River Valley where patients were being drugged to “keep them quiet.” Three people — someone’s mom, or grandmother or grandad! — died from the overdrugging, according to charges filed by the Attorney General’s office.
No, it was the Kern County Long-Term Care Ombudsman’s office that blew the whistle on that horror show.
“Because of our presence, the fact that people know who we are and about the program and they trust us, people who were directly affected contacted us,” said Nona Tolentino, director of the Ombudsman office.
That’s the whole idea behind the program, which was created in the 1970s by federal law and later enhanced by state law.
“It brings the community into the facility,” Tolentino told me. “We’re not a regulatory agency or law enforcement. We’re there to talk to the residents, take a look, listen and speak up for the resident.”
The other thing the Ombudsman’s office does is maintain public files where you or I can check a nursing home’s record. You can read reports written by real people from our own community who have walked the halls, talked to patients, seen what kind of food was served and know if the place is clean or not.
That kind of information is invaluable, even more so than the online resources provided by the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform and Medicare, both of which rate facilities at the local level.
The Ombudsman is a simple, low-cost program that is highly effective.
Even so, it does require some money and, more important, people — which I’ll get back to in a second.
Tolentino, who’s spent her career helping children and the elderly in Kern, has a very non-adversarial philosophy about the job.
She and the volunteers she trains don’t want to shut down homes and hospitals. They work with management and staff to resolve problems, improve practices and make life better for residents.
Up until last October, Tolentino had a budget of about $100,000 a year that paid her, another staffer and all the administrative stuff needed to recruit, train and manage a host of volunteers. The state’s cut has dropped her budget to about $50,000 a year, from a mix of federal and county monies. As of June 30, she will have to let her lone staffer go.
After that, it will be just Tolentino and about 16 volunteers to make visits to 19 nursing homes and 107 residential care facilities (that’s about 4,000 patient beds combined).
Ideally, she said, she would like to have 68 volunteers not only to make visits and handle complaints but to help staff the phones, make copies, go to recruiting seminars and help with training.
There’s a bill in the Legislature right now that will attempt to restore about half of the $3.8 million from the state. But considering the condition of the alleged budget and all the other hands already out there, I’m not too hopeful.
Some people have asked Tolentino about creating a new non-profit to fund the Ombudsman office.
But, she said, there are already a lot of non-profits out there, many competing for the same resources. She doesn’t want to add to that stew.
Instead, she’s hoping an existing organization might want to “adopt” the Ombudsman’s office and raise money, awareness and hopefully even some volunteers.
Kern County is a generous place. I have no doubt there are several organizations that could whip up a golf tournament, charity run or Harley ride to keep the Ombudsman in paper clip money.
Even more important are the volunteers.
This is no easy task. You have to submit to a background and fingerprint test and successfully complete a 36-hour course. Tolentino asks for a one-year commitment, serving a minimum four hours a week.
Once you get past all that, the real work begins, visiting patients and building relationships that will certainly enrich your life even as they may break your heart.
Creating a strong, caring, locally based program independent of fickle state fortunes is, however, an investment in our own futures.
Because the other thing they say about getting old is also true: We’re all gonna be there someday (if we’re lucky).
Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com
The Ombudsman’s office is administered by Greater Bakersfield Legal Assistance and shares office space with them at 615 California Ave.
To volunteer, donate money or help out in anyway, please call 323-7884 or 888-292-4252.
Or visit their site online at:
www.gbla.org/ez.php?Page=3242
There is also a state crisis line available after-hours, weekends and holidays: 800-231-4024
To check out how nursing homes rate you can go to the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform website at:
http://www.canhr.org/
NH_Data/
Or you can go to the Medicare site at:
http://www.medicare.
gov/default.asp
And scroll down to “Compare Nursing Homes in Your Area.”
This site also gives a lot of information about what nursing home dosts Medicare does and does not cover.
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