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NURSING HOME REFORM
NEWSLETTER
June 13, 2005
One of the chief executives of a survey research firm in Wisconsin is a
champion pickle grower. His colleague, Neil Gulsvig, is not, but he
unintendedly found himself in a pickle at the meeting of the
legislatures interim committee on health and welfare last week in
Northern Kentucky. It all started when Mr. Gulsvig told about the
results of his survey of families of nursing home residents in Kentucky.
Everyone in the room, including the panel of lawmakers, was shocked when
he reported that 88 percent of those who responded to the survey were
either "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with the nursing home care. The
Kentucky nursing home industry hired him to do the survey as a part of
their new " Quality First" campaign. Of course, this campaign is a
propaganda tool for the industry to make itself look good before the
public and legislators. It didn’t work, at least last week. The
legislators saw right through the whole thing.
Rep. Ruth Ann Palumbo, D-Lexington, and Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington,
both pummled Mr. Guslvig with doubting questions. Said committee
co-chair Tom Burch, D-Louisville, "If Delta Airlines told you that they
would get there 88 percent of the time, would you get on their
airplanes?" One committee member, a Republican, sided with the "quality"
presentation. Sen. Richard Roeding from Northern Kentucky said, "I find
your research results right in line with my experience." And committee
co-chair Julie Rose Denton of Louisville said she had a lot of questions
about the claims of advocates for nursing home reform. A representative
of Kentuckians For Nursing Home Reform offered to meet with both of the
doubting lawmakers. Sen. Roeding refused; Sen. Denton agreed. Republican
Sen. Tom Buford of Nicholasville wondered where the recent $55 million
in the provider tax windfall to nursing homes went. He was obviously
aware that the industry promised to use the money to improve quality.
"We would like to know how you used it," Sen. Buford said. The pickle
jar was open and the taste was sour.
VISITING
Many nursing home residents seldom have visitors. Ombudsmen report that
about 50 percent of the residents they check have very few visitors
during the year. The AARP reported on a survey that said 60 percent have
very few visitors each year. But surveyor Neil Gulsvig at the Northern
Kentucky legislative meeting said that 96 percent of the people he
surveyed reported that they visit on a monthly basis. That left
Democratic Rep. Jimmie Lee of Elizabethtown with this comment: "I visit
long-term care facilities in my district, and in most of them there are
a number of residents who never have a visitor."
WHAT WILL HAPPEN?
The meeting in Northern Kentucky of legislators and stakeholders in
long-term care was the first in a series of "summit" meetings that Rep.
Lee and Rep. Burch have called for. Rep. Burch said the meetings would
continue, and his staff will be doing a good bit of research to get more
information for legislators about the quality of nursing home care in
Kentucky. Advocates for nursing home reform point out that some 37
states now have state staffing regulations. Rep. Burch and others want
to know if these regulations are effective in the states. We can already
tell him that where they are done right, they are.
NUN-SENSE
I attended a Roman Catholic grade school, so it was no surprise when a
Catholic nun let me have it at the Northern Kentucky meeting. She said
that she runs a good nursing home and she didn’t approve of my calling
all nursing homes bad. I told her that I did not do that. I call most of
them bad in the way they take care of residents. She runs a non-profit
nursing home, so her exasperation is probably justified. Besides I
learned never to argue with a nun. I should have told her about the
University of Toronto study that says non-profit facilities generally
provide better care. The author of the study said, "It could be as
simple as them not being required to put any profits back into the
homes." Makes sense to me.
SUPPORT THE OMBUDSMEN
A Northern Kentucky civic leader spoke up for nursing home ombudsmen at
the legislative meeting. Barbara Gunn of Senior Services of Northern
Kentucky, who also is incoming president of the Kentucky Association for
Gerontology (KAG), urged the lawmakers to keep up the "continued use of
CMP (civil monetary fund) funds to support the ombudsmen. Advocates, you
recall, were able to work out a deal several years ago in the Patton
Administration to have the CMP money used partially to make sure that
all district ombudsmen in the state are full-time. Up until then, only
four were. There are 15 in the state.
SPEAKING OF OMBUDSMEN
We were unhappy to learn that the state long-term care ombudsman, John
Sammons, is retiring in August. All the district ombudsmen in the state
report to this office. Besides that, the long-term care ombudsman can
have great influence on the quality of nursing home care in the state.
We are not only unhappy that Mr. Sammons is leaving this post, but we do
not especially like the way the ombudsman post is placed on the
organizational chart of the Fletcher administration, and all those
before it. Dr. Jim Holsinger, secretary for the Cabinet for Health and
Family Services, has put the long-term care ombudsman under the Office
of the Ombudsman which has nothing to do with nursing homes but rather
complaints from citizens about services from the cabinet. The new chief
of that office is a Lexington-Urban County Councilman George Meyers. I
doubt Mr. Meyers comes in knowing much about long-term care. Besides,
the long-term care ombudsmen should be free of any bureaucratic or
partisan influence and be able to champion the cause of nursing home
residents independently. Who will replace Mr. Sammons is an emerging
issue, very important to quality care in nursing homes. We would like to
see the state long-term care ombudsman pulled out of the Cabinet for
Health and Family Services altogether and put in the governor’s office.
We expect our friend, Dr. Holsinger, to listen to advocates on this one
and do the right thing.
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
"It’s tough to get these issues (about elder care) up to the top…. We
need the right advocates." -- Bill Cooper, director of the state
Division of Aging Services, at a meeting in April at UK.
P.S.
There were four country churches in a small Alabama town:
The Presbyterian Church, the Baptist Church, the Methodist Church and
the Catholic Church. Each church was overrun with pesky squirrels.
One day, the Presbyterian Church called a meeting to decide what to do
about the squirrels. After much prayer and consideration they determined
that the squirrels were predestined to be there and they shouldn't
interfere with God's divine will.
In the Baptist Church the squirrels had taken up habitation in the. The
deacons met and decided to put a large plywood cover on the baptistery
and flood it. The squirrels escaped somehow and there were twice as many
there the next week.
The Catholic group got together and decided that they were not in a
position to harm any of God's creation. So, they humanely trapped the
squirrels and set them free a few miles outside of town. Three days
later, the squirrels were back.
But -- the Methodist Church came up with the best and most effective
solution. They baptized the squirrels and registered them as members of
the church. Now they only see them on Christmas and Easter.
HERE’S HOW TO CONTACT US...
e-mail: KyNursingHomeReform@yahoo.com
web site: http://www.KyNursingHomeReform.org
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