They are going to “let" my brother stay with him for two nights.

Take this as a case study.

Those words from Betty’s text jumped out at me and I instinctively dialed her cell phone number. Her father is in the nursing home. Some time ago he broke his ankle in a fall at home and was hospitalized for surgery. After surgery he moved to this nursing home for care and therapy with the expectation of returning to his own home.

The surgical incision didn’t heal. We’ll leave the finger-pointing aside here. The lawyers can do that. Suffice it to say that the picture I saw of the open incision made me gasp. Once again this 86-year-old man was hospitalized. This time, because of exacerbating chronic conditions, the surgery was an amputation of the affected leg below his knee.

Think about it. An older adult, living independently, falls and breaks his ankle. It results in surgery and subsequent nursing care that raises serious questions. Subsequently, this man who initially just broke his ankle ends up losing part of that lower limb.

Those of us who work with older adults, and/or who read about older adults being hospitalized, and,  under general anesthesia, know the dangers of delirium in such instances. Exacerbating factors are new environments. Carolyn’s dad’s situation fits the bill on all counts.

The family is close-knit and one of Betty’s brothers asked if he could stay overnight in his dad’s room because of his dad’s confusion. The nursing home’s response was, as Betty related in her text, “They are going to let (emphasis mine) my brother stay all night with my dad for a couple of nights.” Thus my instinctive phone call to Betty with a few words about nursing home regulations, and a few  about  staff or management using the word“let”.

What do we need to take from this?  Consumers (those who use the services of a health care institution) and their family members MUST know what the minimum standards of care are in a nursing home so that they can be advocates, either for themselves or for their family member.

Consumers must be encouraged by advocates to speak up for the rights of those nursing home residents, to trust and act on their instincts about whether something is amiss.

Those of us who are not yet in a nursing home cannot deny the possibility that we may one day find ourselves there.  Does not the motive of self-interest prod us to eliminate the status quo of traditional nursing homes and fight for a place called HOME?

Or do we think we won’t ever be old, or frail, or disabled.  Are we part of the American culture that views aging much like ethnicity?  Once Irish, always Irish; Once Italian, always Italian, Once young, always ------- ?