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NURSING HOME REFORM
NEWSLETTER
August 10, 2007
HEADS UP, NORTHERN KENTUCKY
We are bringing one
of our educational seminars to Northern Kentucky. The date is Sunday
Sept. 16. The time 4 p.m. The location: Lakeside Christian Church
at 195 Buttermilk Pike near the junction of I-75. The subject:
“What’s Your Question About Nursing Homes?” An expert panel will
field your questions. We will have Martha Marie Eastman of Louisville,
one of the top nursing home litigation attorneys in the state; Pam
Pangburn, the nursing home district ombudsman for Northern Kentucky, and
hopefully a representative of the Office of the Inspector General, that
regulates nursing homes. Bring any questions you have about nursing
home care and these experts can answer them. We look forward to seeing
and meeting all of our friends and supporters in Northern Kentucky, and
thanks to the Lakeside Christian Church for letting us use their
facilities. Also, to the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky for making
this forum and others coming up in the future possible.
HERE COMES BIG BLUE...
That delayed,
sometimes controversial continuing care community at the University of
Kentucky apparently will finally get going. On Sept. 6 at 10 a.m. at
the UK Alumni House, UK President Lee Todd and other UK officials will
announce a new location for the project. This is the project, designed
by the Praexis Group of Florida, that ran into much controversy when the
site was announced to be built on the grounds of the Spindletop Hall,
the UK alumni and faculty club on Ironworks Pike in Lexington. Club
members protested the move even though plans included fixing up the
aging club house. That caused UK to scrap the whole plan and look for a
new location. The new location will apparently be in South Lexington,
near the Fayette-Jessamine County line. The idea is to build a
continuing care community – independent living, assisted living and
skilled nursing home facilities.
... WITH MIDWAY COLLEGE NOT
FAR BEHIND
According to a
Lexington Herald-Leader story, a project to build long-term care
facilities in Woodford County is finally coming to pass after years of
work and negotiating. The Homeplace, to be built on the campus of
Midway College, a small, independent women’s college, will be the site
of an assisted living facility with 24 units and a nursing home with 29
beds. The idea has been in the works for years. This project brings
back to nursing home management an old hand in administering such
facilities, Keith Knapp of Louisville. Mr. Knapp, who recently earned
his doctorate in gerontology at the University of Kentucky, is the
former administrator of the Episcopal Church Home in Louisville. He
left that post about a year ago to become chief operating officer of the
Christian Care Communities which will own and manage the new Midway
project.
‘GREENHOUSES’ EVERYWHERE?
Initial plans for the
UK continuing care community were to utilize the so-called “Greenhouse
Concept” in building its nursing facilities. Now the new nursing
facility at Midway is going to do that. If indeed the UK project does
incorporate the Greenhouse Concept, that would suddenly make two of the
unique nursing facilities in Kentucky where there was none before. In
fact, there are few Greenhouse projects in the nation. The idea is to
provide a more homelike setting with small independent standing units
with lots of windows and light. Ten or so elderly people live in each
house like a family. They sleep in their own bedrooms, each home-cooked
meals, and if they choose, help with light household tasks. The
Greenhouse Concept stands in stark contrast to the long hallway,
hospital like settings of traditional nursing homes. The Greenhouse
Concept is the idea of Dr. Bill Thomas, a Harvard-educated geriatrician
from Tupelo, Miss., where the first Greenhouse was built.
ARE YOU WATCHING THE
CANDIDATES?
We are asking all of
our newsletter readers to take advantage of any chance they get to ask
the candidates for governor – Republican Ernie Fletcher and Democrat
Steve Beshear – whether they will support meaningful nursing home reform
if they are elected. Let them know you want them to support minimum
staffing standards for all nursing homes in the state. Remember to tell
them also that we don’t want to tell the nursing homes how to staff
their facilities, but we do want a law that will keep them from going
below safe staffing standards. That’s where minimum staffing
ratios play a key role. You can catch the candidates at a meeting, one
of their many fundraisers, or by calling a radio talk show they might be
on. If you catch one of them, let us know what he said.
LETTERS
Not forgotten
Now we ask you,
readers. How would you answer the following letter? –
To Whom it may
concern,
I have been reading
this information and am frustrated. The comment, "the forgotten people"
does not seem accurate to me. I have worked in long-term care for 16
years, since I was 16. Where is the information about the "celebrated
people?" There are nurses and facilities that provide excellent care to
Kentucky’s residents. There are facilities that are focusing on
"resident-centered care" and helping their residents celebrate their
lives. There are some problems in long-term care, but let’s not forget
those facilities that strive and achieve in providing quality care.
There are facilities right here that provide this care, here in
Kentucky. Please help us focus on some positive aspects of long-term
care so that the public can find some comfort and trust when they are
faced with placing their loved ones in our hands. I would love to read
about a facility that encourages choices to their residents and
residents’ rights. I would love for the public to know that there are
facilities that will not only join in the celebration of their loved
ones lives, but also to have comfort and die with dignity.
NAME WITHHELD
Big bonus would
buy lots of extra nurses
Here is a letter
that has been bouncing around the internet, signed by some important
people and organizations, and a suggestion from our board member Jan
Scherrer that we share it with you newsletter readers. So here it is:
Reports that Manor Care’s CEO Paul Ormond would personally realize
between $118 and $186 million when his company, the largest nursing home
chain in the United States, is acquired later this year by a private
equity group got us thinking about staffing in nursing homes. Knowing
that the federal government has reported that more than 90% of nursing
homes do not have enough staff to take care of their residents, we
wondered how many nurses and nurse aides could be hired for a year at
Manor Care’s nursing facilities with that same money.
Using federal wage estimates for nursing home workers, we calculated
that Manor Care’s 278 nursing homes could hire an additional 5,346
certified nurse aides or an additional 2,198 registered nurses if
$118,000,000 were spent on staff (19.2 aides or 7.9 RNs at each
Manor Care nursing home). If Mr. Ormond’s $186,000,000 windfall were
spent on staff, Manor Care could hire an additional 8,427 certified
nurse aides or an additional 3,464 RNs (30.3 CNAs or 12.5 RNs at
each Manor Care nursing home).
Like all nursing home chains, most of Manor Care’s revenues come from
public programs, Medicare and Medicaid. How should our public health
care dollars be spent? One man’s windfall or certified nurse assistants
and registered nurses in nursing homes? "
Sincerely,
--Toby S. Edelman
--Center for Medicare Advocacy
--California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform
--The John A. Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing
--National Conference of Geriatric Nurse Practitioners
SHORT STUFF
-
That rumor that
Mark Birdwhistell, secretary for the state Cabinet for Health and
Family Services, is leaving for a big job in Washington popped up
again., But at a meeting in Lexington Mr. Birdwhistell said that
he is “absolutely not” a candidate for any job in Washington.
-
A wonderful little booklet called “End of Life
Issues,” is the work of Sheila Beilman Mead. She is willing to send
one to you free. Just contact her at
naturesm@bellsouth.net,
or at 19001 Hunt Country Lane, Fisherville, KY 40023.
-
Maybe it’s the heat……. but never
thought we would hear a big-time industry lobbyist say this: “…. CMS
should require facilities to report on their staffing levels, as that is
where problems of poor performance often commence.” That was Larry
Minnix, head of the industry lobbying group, the American Association of
Homes and Services for the Aging, talking. Mr. Minnix also was quoted
as saying that there should be two types of nursing homes: “the
excellent and the non-existent.”
-
Want to contact the top dog in your
nursing home ownership? Ownership information is hard to find many
times. The state Office of the Inspector General, however, has made it
somewhat easier. You can go to the OIG Web site and click on
http://chfs.ky.gov/oig/directories.htm
and find your nursing home and the name of the owner. Trouble is there
is no executive’s name or address, just the name of the company that
owns the facility. Apparently this is a big problem nationally. The
National Citizens’ Coalition for Nursing Home Reform (NCCNHR) is pushing
the Congress to pass a law to put ownership and management information
on Nursing Home Compare, a Web site managed by the federal Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). But don’t hold your breath for
this federal action. Better to contact Steven D. Davis, the Kentucky
Inspector General, and ask him to add the information to what he already
is doing on his Kentucky Web site.
- If you spend any time in a nursing
home, you will find that dental care of residents is often lacking.
Most nursing home residents are on Medicaid, but less than a fourth of
the dentists in Kentucky participate in the Medicaid program so there
are few dentists providing services to nursing home residents. The
state one time agreed to sponsor a training program on teeth care for
the nursing staff in nursing homes. That’s been almost a year ago and
nothing’s been done so far, says Dr. Robert Henry, who headed a Kentucky
Oral Health Survey, and is one of the promoters of the project. The
state Office of Inspector General was in charge of setting the training
up.
GOOD STUFF TO DO NOW...
Go to our Web site by
clicking
here.
On the front page of
the Web site, do two things:
1. Order your free
copy of “How to Protect Nursing Home Residents” -- or download it right
there from our Web site. It’s a terrific little booklet produced by
the office of Attorney General Greg Stumbo. It began as an idea of one
of our members, Lois Pemble of Lexington. Every member of a nursing
home Family Council ought to have one of these.
2. Sign the petition
that Frank Losey, one of our members from Northern Kentucky, is
circulating to urge Kentucky lawmakers to increase the bed hold time
from the current 14 days. He needs your support right away.
MEMORIALIZE YOUR LOVED ONES
KENTUCKIANS FOR
NURSING HOME REFORM is now officially a non-profit organization. That
means, for one thing, that any donations to the organization are tax
deductible by the donor. With that in mind, we offer for your
consideration the thought that memorials at the time of death of a loved
one or friend could be in the form of donations to KENTUCKIANS FOR
NURSING HOME REFORM, 1530 Nicholasville Road, Lexington, KY 40503.
NEWS NOTES...
We get tons of
information in here that affect nursing home reform. We want to share
this information with those of you who are interested, but rather than
putting it all in our newsletter we will post it regularly on our web
site:
Click here.
Go there now and see
what we mean.
P.S.
Here are
the 10 first place winners in the International Pun Contest:
1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying
two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, "I'm sorry,
sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."
2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and
says "Dam!"
3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in
the craft.
Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your
kayak and heat it too.
4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says "I've lost my electron." The other
says "Are you sure?" The first replies "Yes, I'm positive."
5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root
canal?
His goal: transcend dental medication.
6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing
in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about
an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse.
"But why?" they asked, as they moved off.
"Because," he said," I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open
foyer."
7. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes
to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in
Spain; they name him "Juan."
Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother.
Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she
also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If
you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."
8. A group of friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they
opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to
buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the
competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but
they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They
ignored him.
So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most
vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the
friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close
up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can
prevent florist friars.
9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which
produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very
little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered
from bad breath. This made him (Oh man, this is so bad, it's good) a
super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
And finally,
10. There was
the person who sent ten different puns to friends, with the hope that at
least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.
-- thanks to Mary Brogan of
Honolulu for sending us this one.
THAT’S
IT FOR THIS TIME, BUT DON’T FORGET...
MORE THAN 23,000 PEOPLE IN NURSING
HOMES IN KENTUCKY NEED US. THEY ARE KENTUCKY’S “FORGOTTEN PEOPLE.”
BERNIE VONDERHEIDE
KENTUCKIANS FOR NURSING HOME REFORM
E-mail:
KyNursingHomeReform@yahoo.com
Web Site:
http://www.KyNursingHomeReform.org
Telephone: (859) 312-5617
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