Nursing home abandons patients! Huh?

It is said that a society can be judged fairly by the way it comes to treat it's most vulnerable members. These can be the very young, the very old or the infirm and cripple. It's often a combination when looking at a civilization or culture as a whole and in broad terms.

So what, my fellow ATS'ers, are we to think of our society given things like this?

Alameda County sheriff's deputies removed more than a dozen patients from an assisted living facility in Castro Valley today after it was determined that they had been "abandoned" there by the owners and staff, a department spokesman said this evening.

The Sheriff's Office was called this afternoon to the facility on Apricot Street, which appears to be listed variously as Valley Springs Manor, Valley Manor Community Care Home or Valley Manor Residential Care, after a medical call, Sgt. J.D. Nelson said

Source

The brief story I caught off a wire service headline indicates the all but a few of the staff were 'in the wind' so to speak and Police are trying to locate them now. There was also a 'Closed' notice on their front door, posted by the Department of Social Services, dated October 24th.

I'm wondering just what would have happened to these elderly folks, some bedridden by the story, if someone hadn't called the Police to come investigate? I almost shudder to think. If this is all how it first appears? I do hope those owners have many years of quiet solitude to consider how the people in the Home must have felt ..as it dawned on them, what had been done to them.

What is this nation coming to when people can seemingly be abandoned as easily as junk in an overdue storage locker?

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I'm wondering just what would have happened to these elderly folks, some bedridden by the story, if someone hadn't called the Police to come investigate? I almost shudder to think.


It shouldn't take this kind of story to bring attention to the lack of resources applied to these specific demographics.


And if this story does indeed startle you, you haven't taken note...


The G.I. Generation is long gone...woe is us.

Sounds to me like HHS is in serious full pad practice mode for their future roles of All American Einsatzgruppen

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Yes, Wrabbit, what has happened to people's Heart? What has happened to America that we no longer value these people, mostly the elderly.

We are going our own way, doing our own thing with no concern for the parents and grandparents who raised us. Why do we not cherish them and cherish the wisdom they have to offer.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I live in Alameda County (though not in Castro Valley). According to the local papers

...when the staff apparently walked out Thursday after the state ordered the home closed, Alameda County sheriff's deputies said.

[...]

"Thursday came around and the majority of the staff left and the majority of the patients remained," said sheriff's Sgt. J.D. Nelson.

The staff members who stayed, including a cook, a janitor and what is believed to be a single caretaker, "stayed because they felt bad for the patients," Nelson said. "They weren't getting paid or anything."

"Right now we have a lot more questions than answers," Nelson said. "There's a question of what happens when the state closes a home, whether they send anyone in afterward to see what happened."

The incident is being treated as a criminal case and the investigation is continuing.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

There is that all-important question of whether the State does any kind of follow-up when it closes these places down—as we can anticipate a lot more of this sort of thing as the banksters turn this country into a banana republic.

Sad days indeed....

reply to post by Ex_CT2


Thank you for that followup detail. I had a feeling that was what happened with the Staff that remained. I'm glad some of them are human with hearts and compassion. What if they'd all walked? Wow...

Follow-up shouldn't be asking anything special when they are closing a facility full of real people, many of whom are not physically capable of leaving under their own power. You would think, follow-up would be automatic and standard.

far out...looks like this is what we can look forward to as we get older......with this kind of behaviour being ok we should probably exterminate ourselves as a species....when money is more important than people we are a doomed and sadly this behaviour is common practice.....

reply to post by Ex_CT2


It gave me a good feeling that at least a few stayed to do what they
could to help, feeling the gravity of the situation.

Isn't this a looming risk with elderly care. In general, If a privatr care
facility hits financial woes and must eliminate staff or worse forfit
the building. Is it the responciblity of the residence to find other arangements?

I have worked in these areas. I will give you a possible scenario for what happened.

Some pencil pushing idiot issues a closure order due to upkeep or some other reason. It is not His/her responsibility to do any thing else and that is all he/she is allowed to do.

The lawyers for the owners tell the owners not to go back after the date on the closure order or (especially in the US) they will do jail time. So they simply send out letters to the next of kin giving them no time to react.

Most workers are fired so they don't go back because if they do they may be held liable if something bad happens. They could conceivably be sent to jail for trespassing, such is the US legal system.

On the closure date someone, probably the owners know what will happen so they call / have someone call the Police because there is no one else in the entire State Government that will take responsibility.

The Police go in and say WTF are we left holding the can for!

If you live in a litigious society and you live in a society that sends people to jail on a whim and a sniff what do you expect is going to happen.

What needs to happen is that the State Governor to start an investigation as to why this happened as it did and take corrective action but that would interfere with his/her cocktail parties and re-erection campaign.

P

Wrabbit2000

What is this nation coming to when people can seemingly be abandoned as easily as junk in an overdue storage locker?

Its coming to the dark side my friend.

Our nation is not going nuts, its just becoming evil. Look at all the evidence its overwhelming.

reply to post by MALBOSIA

Is it the responciblity of the residence to find other arangements?

You know? I read that and passed over it...then froze and came back. Wait a minute, indeed... As a legal question, that's a real good one? What is the actual status for elderly at a long term care facility? They are the responsibility of the Facility and ...does that carry beyond closure of the facility? Surely it has to. There can't be any laws around the country that wouldn't have covered that, could there?

That strikes me as just technical enough to BE a question ..and perhaps the fact it even could be wondered about says a lot in itself? It SHOULD be the unquestionable duty of a care facility to see the residents find other accomodations in the 'can't stay here' immediate near term ..or supply them in some other way.

This would be the alternative and barbaric almost beyond words if it didn't happen like Pheonix suggests with a simple game being played like putting a baby on a hospital door step and leaving. (knowing care is coming, but not caring anything beyond that)

It sure doesn't read that way though. It sounds like the Staff felt just as abandoned and confused with the State/Cops just in a situation of 'WTH??' for what they walked into.

Imagine finding that on a general 'well-check' type call. Sheesh... No humanity left in some humans.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Wrabbit, this is what happens when a system meant for Justice becomes a system based on Law. That is what the US system is.

Only a little while ago we had a thread where a guy deemed dead by the State walks in to a court and says, Your Honor, I am still alive," and the Judge says, "No, you are still dead!"

It sounds comical and comedians will no doubt ham it up but this is the US legal system, it is what the people have allowed it to become. If you slip on the sidewalk whom do you sue!

People cannot take responsibility for themselves, someone else must pay me for my stupidity.

Now you have what you have.

Justice does not exist in the US.

The Law exists and is an entity by itself with no moral fiber, no compassion and no desire to help another human being. The fault in a democratic society can rest only with the people! In a chorus the people cry, No that should not happen! and then they go back to watching reruns of desperate housewives without a care in the world.

Metaphorically speaking, you broke it, you fix it.

P

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Well first off you cannot really blame the staff...
If the staff was told after each shift to collect their belongings, clock out, and go home because they were being laid off, its not their job to come back and ensure that the patients are being taken care of by management. As a matter of fact, showing back up to work after being laid off is a damn good way to end up in police custody in today’s world.

Now with that said, all the medical field is becoming sleazy in the same way that bankers are. Its all about the money since insurances have started cutting reimbursements. Doctors who are used to getting say a million a year from a particular procedure are not happy with getting a fraction of that, and will find ways to recoup it. Nursing homes and hospices are, from what I understand from friends working in them, some of the worst in the bunch. I am hearing rumors of all sorts of questionable and even fraudulent activity going on. One nurse friend of mine was working at a hospice that is under federal investigation for keeping patients on the books who didn't have terminal illnesses so they could bill for them.

Wait, where are they getting “Abandoned” from?

Responding paramedics became concerned after they found that most of the staff had left and only a skeleton crew remained, Nelson said.

reply to post by defcon5


What you say makes complete sense with the staff. It sounds like the ones who did show up are the best people in the story here. The staff who didn't...? It wouldn't be liability, anyway. I'm sitting here thinking, and I couldn't see sleeping very well if I had the choice to make and chose to walk..but conscience and law either civil or criminal are two different things, too.

The owners are a whole different thing though and they do represent the home, as I'd understand it.

I know a lot of people have grown callous about stories similar to this and we have a couple state level politicians right here in Missouri tied to stories of bad handling and neglect issues in long term care homes. Still, this one did shock me a bit for the extreme of it...outright abandonment? That really is a new low. Have you heard of anything quite like this? (outside of disasters where I've heard of it a couple times)

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Well as a staff member its not wise to work off the clock. Working off the clock means working without any liability protection. If something were to happen to you, or a patient, none of it would be covered in this sue-happy world we live in.

Even worse case scenario would be to show up, find out its being handled, and that you are getting arrested for showing up as a “disgruntled laid off employee”.

Now, as to the rest....
There is a hunk that is missing from this story. I'd say that the owners are at fault, but then it could also be the agency that hung the “closure” notice on the door. I think we need more facts to make accusations in this instance.

Have I heard of people falling between the “cracks” in a bureaucracy before? Yes, I believe that we all have.

reply to post by defcon5


I'm wondering if this is just one instance of the passive/aggressive gov't putting an end to private long term facilities - these people should be in gov't run - and gov't "healthcare" - where they can be placed on the infamous "pathway" to death - that we have heard so much from the UK and Canada about.?

reply to post by Happy1


I wouldn't read that much into it, no. Sadly, bad conditions, neglect and worse across US nursing/long term care facilities are too common. This would make the extreme I've heard, but that's all I can say for it and that much I think is right for earlier people not being all that surprised.

That's not to say they are all bad. It's like a number of areas though, when it DOES go bad? The nature of it makes it horribly so, IMO.

As for Government long term care.. (cough).. We don't need any psychic to see that and really didn't need one for the whole thing happening now. Government long term care, to my thinking, is the V.A. Talk about a system where experiences seem to vary to the polar extremes. No more Government into new things, I'd say.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


It's a sad situation, and an indictment on current times, but the truth is a very simple truth.

There's no money in compassion.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


HmmHmm if the state shut it down... why didn't the state take the patients into protective custody until loved ones could be notified to come get them and find them new placement... I mean come on.. logic