OHIO HB 236 Will it Hurt Familes More Than Help Them?
Many families are crucial in the support and care of their mothers, fathers, and other treasured family members and friends that are like family. This can be a very emotional arena for them in trying to get the best care they can for their loved ones in what many feel is a broken health care system. However, too many times the families are made to feel that they are viewed as “trouble makers” from some staff instead of feeling like a team member working together with the staff to improve care as it should be. Many times there is no empathy shown for the families in their quest for needed and appropriate care for their loved one. This can be one of the most emotional and challenging times for families that is seldom acknowledged or help given for. Familes are often ignorned and not valued to give input when new laws are being hashed out, being a member of a task force meetings, or from the facilities themselves in the form of encouraging Family Councils, that much act like a PTA in a school setting. Click here to read the easy to read analysis of HB 236
We feel it is of no value to say the families have a right to private civil action. That goes without saying and putting in this act may confuse some to think it’s something new and not a right they already have. It does not help to have extra wording that provides no additional help but only appears to, in our view.
We also feel that defining “advocates” in this Bill reinvents the wheel and could cause confusion ot the designations already known and used. When a resident is admitted, one of the first things that the facility wants to know is if and who is the “Guardian,” “POA, ”or “ Designated Resident Representative.” If a resident wishes to change their designation at any time, they can notify the facility. Many times this designation continues to be valid if a resident becomes incompetent. The designations indicate who the resident prioritizes from the time they arrive at the facility and who is most involved.
Advocate Prohibitions: We do not understand the need for this to be in the Bill. This is opening the door to easily ban family members as we have seen done in the past at some facilities. When have we ever seen stories about family members being physically interferring, delaying or obstructing? If there is a story out there, it is not one we see as often as we see stories on nursing home staff neglecting or abusing residents. If a family member speaks up , questions anything, or has concern on care, the facility many times over exaggerates the situation and falsly claims the family member was “aggresive.” Usually there are no prior police reports, their cameras cannot verify what they claimed happend, no visitor witnesses, and just simply, no proof. What chance does a family member have against several staff or even one? The bad actors know this and have used it against some family members.
Events Reported to Elderly Advocates: We have seen a family member accused of being aggresive to a nurse who was only being asked what medication she was giving the resident. The family member was banned. Without the family member involved, poor care still happened and the resident still continued to complained and was pretty much, thrown out three months later! Banning the family member did not help anything. Another situation happened where a daughter could not take seeing her mom overmedicated anymore and filed a state complaint. After the state came out, the facility retailiated and was successful in getting the Court Appointed Guardian to restrict this daughter to visiting only on Sundays from 1 pm to 2 pm. No other times or exceptions were made! This daughter could not visit holidays or birthdays. This mother died alone without the presence of this only daughter she had. There was no prior police reports, no other witnesses besides staff, nothing on cameras, no due process. It was her word against the staff with no proof. She lost, her mom lost too, dying alone! This hurts not only the family member, but the resident as well. This was one of the saddest things Elderly Advocates witnessed and did all that could be done to help. But, this system works against families when they are perceivced as a “trouble maker” for advocating too much on legitimate concerns. We can do better than this!
The second prohibition of “ Advocates engaging in criminal contact with a staff member” is mind blowing to us! How many media stories or social media stories have we seen about this? If there is one here or there, it’s nowhere near the abundance of stories about neglect and abuse concerning staff. Those are the stories we see in droves almost every day, not criminal charges on families. The facilities have always had the upper hand. There are more staff than familiy members visiting at one time, and all they need to do is pick up the phone and call the police, they will take the word of the staff without one shred of proof even from other visitors at the time, and the family member that did nothing near what they were accused of and the responding police will tell them they have to leave or they are tresspassing and be arrested. So, we do not see it helpful in anyway to start putting in bills issues that should have other ways to resolve than banning people the resident needs access to. We believe all this does is instill more fear into families that are already afraid to speak up and silence them! We need to find more positive ways to resolve issues in an already emotional setting.
We are not clear if a family caregiver has been included in giving input to the ones drafting tHB 263 which greatly affecting family caregivers or if the health care industry is the main contributor or has the final say. We have seen where the industry wants only things favorabld to them in these laws, loopholes for them, and many things that do not support the families in finding ways to find solutions to concerns the families have, more clear gievance procedures, It would be helpful for this law to have ways to resolve issues instead of slienceing familiy caregivers.
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