Having an Elder Care Coordinator on Your Side
Sometimes, when having a loved one in a nursing home or an assisted living facility, circumstances can materialize that require having someone advocating for their interests above those of the facility. That’s when you’ll be glad having an elder care coordinator on your side.
An Unfortunate Circumstance
This has been a crazy summer in the Cleveland area weather-wise. We have had scorching heat and torrential rains.
Recently a storm system came through town and dumped so much rain on Parma in a short time, the entire area near Pleasant Valley Road was inundated with several feet of floodwaters. This flooding compromised the first floor of a nearby nursing home, rendering it uninhabitable for about 60 of its residents, including one of our clients from The Kabb Law Firm.
More Than An Inconvenient Temporary Relocation
The nursing home where these residents lived was tasked with the responsibility of finding alternate temporary lodging for these folks.
The facility opted to transport the residents affected by the flood to other long-term care facilities run by the same corporation (the unlikely alternative being that the facility would call on nearby competitors and ask them to house the clients temporarily with the expectation that the residents would be returned to their original lodging with minimal discord).
Unfortunately for the residents, this corporation is spread out all across the greater Cleveland area, and so our client found himself in a nursing facility 27 miles away from the one in which he was living. The “new” facility is in a whole separate county and if you take the highway, is a 35-minute drive.
Staff from the corporation called our resident’s wife to inform her about the move and in fact, that her husband had already been moved to this alternate location because of the flood. She was disappointed that they called her after the fact and quite frustrated that her husband had been moved so far away.
Our client’s wife is 84 years old and is no longer comfortable driving on the highway. She subsequently needs someone else to drive her over to the facility where her husband is staying.
When she visited the new facility, she found that he had been placed on a locked unit at the new facility (he hadn’t needed this restriction at the original place). She expressed concern that her husband would experience a significant decline while in the new facility and that while the corporation had promised that renovations would only take two weeks, our resident’s wife and I both expressed skepticism that such efficiency could be hoped for in this case.
How Can an Elder Care Coordinator Help?
So what can The Kabb Law Firm in general and an elder care coordinator specifically do in a situation like this?
It is certainly understandable that the facility had no choice but to move residents temporarily until the flood damage could be rectified but it feels like in their problem-solving, they put the needs of the corporation first and the needs of their residents and families second. I learned that in addition to our resident, who had been moved several miles and out of the county, some residents were actually moved to the corporation’s facility in Toledo, almost two hours away.
Advocating for our Elders
When our client’s wife first approached The Kabb Law Firm, it was shortly after he had first been admitted to the long-term care facility in Parma.
The wife wanted our help to act as an advocate for both her husband and her. So that is what we are doing: we have let the corporation know that we are working for the client and his wife and that we are seeking supportive care from the new facility and a timely resolution to the flood and the damage it caused.
I remain in weekly contact with the new facility. Urging them to keep us posted on when our client can return to Parma and the routine that his wife has constructed can be restored.
At The Kabb Law Firm, we certainly cannot prevent nature from taking its course. But when agencies and corporations make decisions which can affect the well-being and quality of life of our clients, we can be there to advocate for our elders.
If you want someone advocating for you and your elderly loved ones, The Kabb Law Firm is here help! Call us or contact us to schedule a free consultation today!
