PITA

I have been thinking seriously about moving my mom from the nursing home she is in, even going so far as to run a reconnaissance mission with Kiki on Tuesday.

We went to a nearby nursing home, signed in as our first names only, and under "resident visited," scribbled "facility" in a barely readable manner. Then we walked through the entire place, peeking in rooms and eavesdropping on the staff interactions with the residents. I was pretty impressed with what I saw and ended up calling my sister, who encouraged me to fill out the paperwork.

While I was there, I ran into one of the aides who used to care for my mom, and he said, "I don't blame you for moving her here. That other place doesn't treat the staff right at all."

And there you have it. The administration thinks they are being "strict" to keep quality of care, I am sure. However, what they are doing is driving away the good staff who can get jobs someplace else which is more pleasant, and rotating new staff through at such a rate that no one can become familiar with and come to care about the residents. And this is my mother.

Some people at the "old place" know I am looking to move Mom, but they haven't said a word to me about it. My office partner said, "They want you gone because you're a pain in the ass." My response to that is, for $200 a day, I expect care in the truest sense of the word. If the facility cannot or will not provide that for my family member, you bet I'm going to be a pain in the ass.