Mom is in a nursing home and has been since Sept 2013. She is on Medicaid and Medicare, the NH receives her full Social Security check. 2 months ago the nurse calls me and tells me Mom's formulary has changed and one of her Meds is no longer covered and it will be an 'out of pocket ' expense..... my pocket at $149.00 per month for 30 pills for 30 days. I've been getting the meds on my own from the pharmacy and delivering them to the NH every month. Saturday the NH calls me to say she is out of meds again, it's only been two weeks since I delivered the last 30 pills. I questioned them and they said they would investigate, I drove the 70 mile round trip to the pharmacy and they gave me 5 pills until the heart doctor could re-new her prescription. Today is Monday and the NH again calls me to say Mom is out of medicine. Then they told me the NH doctor upped the dosage to two a day, I called the NH doctor and ask him if he upped the dosage to 2 a day he said no he did not and ask how many months has she been running short on this med I told him this is the first month. This is a heart medication that her heart doctor prescribed to her long before she went into the nursing home. So I called the heart doctor to verify the correct dosage, it is one per day. The heart doctor did not up the dosage and has requested that she be brought in for an appointment since it has been a year that he has seen her and she needs to be seen every 3 months. The NH doesn't want to take her because she is difficult to handle and they want only the NH doctor to handle her care. The NH doctor told me he goes by what the heart specialist advises and follows his recommendations on Mom's treatment. The Nh doctor only sees Mom every 2 months. Obviously Mom is not receiving the proper care since for the last nearly 3 weeks now has been overdosed daily on her heart meds. Also one of her ($5000.00 per pair) hearing aids is missing the the other one they left in her ear when they washed her hair so now it doesn't work either, I have had to buy her batteries for the hearing aids since she was taken inot the NH. I called the place where I got her hearing aids and ask if they could replace them, they told me not without a new hearing test. I truly don't know that Mom would understand taking a hearing test at this stage of her Dementia. They lost all her clothes except for what she had on and she ended up wearing those for several days before I realized all her clothing was gone. For two days I, myself, had to go through every patients closet in the NH to locate Mom's clothes. I never did find all of them. I ended up having to go buy her $300.00 worth of clothes, underwear and shoes and night gowns and house robes... Everything!! I pay for her to have cable TV in her room and bought her a TV.... the original remote went missing and now the new replacemnet remote is missing.. I've had to replace 2 pessery rings, this is a prescription item also, to the tune of $120.00 each and now her glasses are missing as well. One of the male patients comes into her room at night time and tries to kiss her, she is scared to even go to sleep. Yes I have told the NH administrator and he laughs it all off saying he'll look into it yet nothing is never done. What can I do??? I have to work and I can't leave her alone in my house while I work, I do not make enough money to hire somebody to stay with her while I work. I am so scared and so worried about Mom. PLEASE somebody advise me. What options do I have, this is the only NH for a 50 mile radius of my home and I'm not so sure any of those would be any better. I am all she has there is nobody else to help me at home with her. I feel like because she has Dementia she is a second class citizen, she worked her whole entire life and to be treated this way just rips my heart out and I can't do a d*mn thing about it. Pleas God help me help her.
You've received some wonderful answers here to help with your issues. First and foremost, contact the Ombudsman Supervisor for the nursing home through your local Area Agency on Aging. He/she has the legal right to investigate complaints about resident care where family members may not be allowed to go. Please keep in mine that the Ombudsman cannot look at medical records without resident's or POA's permission (verbal is all that is needed).
Second, ask the nursing home administrator or director of nursing to set up a Care Plan meeting so you can go over all the issues you've mentioned. A meeting of this kind should be conducted each time there is a change in your mom's condition (drastic being the key word here such as changes in her medication intake). Ask the Ombudsman to be present for the meeting, along with the Administrator, DON, Social Services Director, Dietitian, Kitchen Mgr, Activities Director, and a CNA who may be your mom's primary caregiver in the facility. With all these people present and information being shared, no one can say "I didn't know that." As heads of the departments, they are responsible for ensuring the resident's needs, rights and wants are carried out by the staff they supervise.
Document, document, document. As a former Ombudsman, I loved when residents or relatives had everything written down with dates, times, and names. The facility is required to document everything about the residents, but with the extra documentation by a loved one, it helps with investigations.
Finally, if the hearing aid was lost during the care of your mother, the facility is financially responsible for its replacement. Keep on them about this as it's easy for them to push this costly issue into a corner.
Ask your Ombudsman for information about resident's rights. What I always told my residents is, "They are staff. You are the resident. They work for YOU!"
Good luck and stand strong.
You can still use their own doctors too! Do not let the nursing home bully you...