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Dear Health Care Professionals,
Letter by a GAA Subscriber
September, 2004
Commissioner Antonia C. Novello,
M.D., M.P.H., Dr. P.H.,
Corning Tower, Empire State Plaza,
Albany, NY 12237
Dear Commissioner Novello:
This letter is to communicate a concern with the health services provided by the Geneva Living Center South/Transitional Care Program during July 2004.
My mother, Kathleen Adams, after having suffered a slight stroke, was transferred from the F. F. Thompson Hospital in Canandaigua, NY, to the Acute Rehabilitation Unit at Geneva Hospital. She was at the Acute Rehab Unit for two weeks and received excellent care, physical therapy, and encouragement.
At the end of two weeks, she was transferred to the Transitional Care Program at Geneva Hospital, a program which we were told would continue to encourage recovery but with less aggressive physical therapy (at the Acute Rehab Unit, she had physical therapy three times a day; the Transitional Care Program would provide physical therapy one time a day).
In fact, there would have been no physical therapy at the Transitional Care Program had I not been there to insist upon it, even though it was listed on the schedule. She was routinely left in a wheelchair for hours at a time without a call button to alert someone if she needed help or if she required assistance going to the bathroom. She was not allowed to move out of the wheelchair and was attached to a sensor alarm. While I understand the safety issue with the sensor alarm, safety should be accompanied by common sense. The call button should not be on the floor on the other side of the bed.
At night she was put to bed without underpants. She is incontinent. When she pointed this out, she was told to just wet the bed and they'd change it in the morning. This happened three times during the seven days she was in the Transitional Care Program. By the third day she was in tears, lying in a fetal position in her bed, virtually ignored except for the times when I visited. The attitude among the daily staff at TCP was surly - compared to the encouraging spirit at the Acute Rehabilitation Unit. By the sixth day, she had lost seven pounds and we requested her discharge. She could no longer keep her balance using her walker. The gains made in Acute Rehabilitation had disappeared.
Since the discharge on July 15th, she has been living with me and my husband in a small apartment that is not handicapped accessible - difficult, but preferable to the lack of care she received at the Transitional Care Program. She has just started physical therapy and is attempting to regain the strength and self-confidence she lost at TCP.
My reason for writing this letter is to report the disparity of care between Acute Rehabilitation Unit and the Transitional Care Program and how that disparity undermined the recovery of a willing and eager patient. In our case, "Transitional Care Program" was a misnomer, unless it is interpreted to mean transition to dependency, weakness, and depression.
Before discharge, I met with the Transitional Care Program Nurse Manager and expressed my concerns. While I can understand the constraints and pressures under which the Nurse Manager works, I feel I must advocate for people like my mother who are unable to fend for themselves in a confusing, uncaring, and, in my opinion, an unhealthy environment.
Sincerely,
Jeanne Jones
cc: Dr. Mark Livecchi, Geneva General Hospital
Ms. Lisa Stanton, Director Admissions, Long Term Care Programs
Ms. Fran Weisberg, CEO, LifeSpan
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