BOWLING GREEN — After the Ohio Department of Aging asked for input as it creates a navigator for assisted-living facilities, the state was met with heavy criticism and outright discontentment at a public forum.
Residents like Susan Sanderson surrounded tables with a few stacked white poster boards and sticky notes to give suggestions about the department’s soon-to-be Ohio Assisted Living Navigator, similar to the Ohio Nursing Home Quality Navigator, at a state-hosted public forum at the Wood County Senior Center on Tuesday.
Each table had six to seven people interact with one department representative guiding discussion by asking questions about how each of them recognized their loved one needed care, identifying the type of care they needed, how they searched for information, and their experiences, if any, with an assisted-living facility, which is a facility that serves clients who don’t require 24-hour care.
Ms. Sanderson is an ombudsman for Advocates for Basic Legal Equality and her mother has lived in a facility in the past. She sat next to a stack of red sticky notes and discussed ideas with other participants about features that should be included in the new navigator, sticking those suggestions on the board.
One of her ideas was to create a portal in the navigator that lists what a resident’s rights are before they move into a new facility.
If people knew what their rights are while living in any facility, she said, they’d be less likely taken advantage of.
Some of those rights include not being “booted out” for being difficult or problematic and a resident’s right to medications being distributed properly, Ms. Sanderson said.
“The problem is, when you’re in that state of crisis, you just had the hospital tell you yesterday you have to have your mom out by tomorrow,” Ms. Sanderson said. “You barely get [your family member] in the door at the nursing home and then the admissions person is coming at you going, ‘Sign these papers.’
“You feel like you’re buying a house; you don’t know what you’re signing. You’re signing your life away.”
Microphones were passed around for anyone who wanted to speak their concerns to both the representatives and Department of Aging Medical Director Dr. John Weigand.
Community members shared other suggestions like providing a checklist in the navigator with a list of questions to ask when evaluating and selecting a long-term care facility, making the navigator more accessible for people with sight and hearing impairments, and increasing awareness and visibility of ombudsman service.
“I didn’t know that you were going to have an assisted-living [navigator], so I went to nursing homes so I could be heard,” one participant, said. “It is a jungle dealing with the state of Ohio with all of this.”
Other participants recalled frustrating instances of rushing to find the right care facility in a short amount of time and facilities being severely understaffed, causing negative outcomes when it came to their care.
Most Popular
Comments / 0