Retirement communities: the good and the bad.
In the April 2012 issue of the AARP Bulletin, two articles caught my eye. The first article, “To be a Bride Again at 100” (attached is the video link) celebrates the marriage of Dana Jackson, 100 years old, to her groom, 87 year old Bill Stauss. This is a love story between two residents of a nursing home in Bowling Green, Kentucky. This nursing home celebrated their love, and their death-do-us-part vows, in such a lovely way. The management and staff of the nursing home exhibited a wonderful sense of community and support of Dana and Bill. Whether they realized it or not, the staff at the Rosewood Health Care Center helped the newlyweds exercise their rights as long-term care residents.
The second article in the Bulletin’s column, What an Outrage, “Barred from a fine dining restaurant,” shines a spotlight on a Virginia retirement community that not only did not exhibit a sense of community and support, but they quite literally violated the rights of a husband and wife living there. When the husband’s care needs required him to switch to the skilled nursing care portion of the retirement community, while his wife remained in the independent living portion of the community, their meals together were abruptly stopped. The wife could continue to dine in the fine-dining restaurant of the retirement community, but her husband was barred from doing so. He and the other sixteen nursing care and assisted living residents were required to eat in their own separate dining room.
Harbor’s Edge retirement community had a couple non-fatal choking incidents involving three of its nursing care and assisted living residents in 2011 so a new rule was put in place segregating the more inform from the less infirm, even going so far as to ban the more infirm residents from attending events where food was served. Keep in mind, residents in this retirement community make a sizable deposit to live there, to the tune of a half million dollars, PLUS a $5000 monthly fee. I guess money doesn’t buy happiness but it sure should have bought these residents the right to eat where they pleased!
The outcome: the Virginia Department of Health was contacted and soon thereafter, the ban was lifted. In Washington State, laws are in place to protect the residents of long-term care (LTC) facilities so that these residents can experience a dignified quality of life. Vulnerable adult residents are guaranteed specific rights by law. Revised Code of Washington )RCW) 70.129.020 Exercise of Rights, says in a nutshell that a resident has a right to a dignified existence, self-determination, and communication with and access to persons and services inside and outside the facility…The resident has a right to be free of interference, coercion, discrimination and reprisal from the facility in exercising his or her rights. The remainder of RCW 70.129 further details all the civil & resident rights afforded vulnerable adults in the State of Washington. If in your experience you suspect that someone’s long-term care resident rights are being violated, please contact the long-term care ombudsman program in your state by visiting the attached weblink for the National Long-Term Care Ombudsman Resource Center.
What great, and not so great, experiences have you had relative to long-term care residential living? I would love to hear from you so we can celebrate the good, and expose the bad, for all of our benefit.
Living: the ultimate team sport 