OIG Testifies to US Senate Special Committee on Aging -Issues at State Level
This is point on testimony from the OIG to the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging.
There are national adovocates as well as EA that feel that ball drops at the state level in nursing home issues. Most of the complaints we see are always minimum harm when maybe they should be higher harm or affect more residents. It is our hope and goal to have a committee that will bring to light how our agencies in this state are failing residents such as ODH and the Ombudsman Office.
Please remember these offices run on federal and state dollars that come from you!!! We don't put much time into more laws that we cannot enforce. Until we can enforce them, they don't seem to do much. Everything is blamed on the nursing homes, but who enables this poor care at the end of the day? The state does. in our view. They are front lines here. and many feel they are failing the residents. They too, need to be accountable and transparent to the public to get residents the help they truly need and deserve.
Everyone points the finger at someone else, however, this whole system of nursing home care in Ohio needs some major revamping! Many don't speak up and ignore these issues and in all fairness, the Ombudsman does not have a clue how many are upset with them. The Ombudsman does not engage satisfaction surveys to know how effective or helpful they are to families. But we need to stop complaining to each other and bring our complaints to someone who can help fix the issues most want to pretend are not there, but are!
Consider a few hours helping on addressing this issues and finding solutions! Together we have the opportunities to make a difference. If no one tries, we can expect more decades of this.