Unhappy Friend in Nursing Home

Ms_Chocaholic

Sorry the information I'm giving here is vague as I am posting for a acquaintance who I don't know very well, I'll call her Pamela.

Pamela at a guess is early 60s,she had some medical issues which affected her mobility and she is now recuperating in a nursing home.  She hates it, the portion sizes are diabolical and the quality of the food is really poor. Pamela has said to me that she is stuck in the place which for several reasons doesn't suit her.  She said she cannot get off the bed without being hoisted and it terrifies her and defeats the object of independent living which is what she wants.

I know little bits but not enough to give her lots of advice, can anyone help please.

elsien

How did she get to this particular home? Who was involved in the decision that she needed to recuperate, and how long is it for? Is she self-funding or are the LA/health paying? 

With regards to mobility/independence, those hoists really don’t feel good - I had to be hoisted as part of my training to show me what it felt like. 

But people aren’t usually hoisted if they can weight bear/transfer in other ways so it sounds like there may be a little more to the full picture. Any OT or physio involved? 

As a starting point has she raised her complaints with the home manager? 

Otherwise she needs to talk to whoever was involving in finding the place about the longer term plan plus bear in mind that nursing home places are like gold dust at the moment so there may not be a huge amount of choice, 

The information you have is not enough to give more specific advice. 

Ms_Chocaholic

Thank you @elsien, I had hoped you would reply as I see you have given excellent advice on other threads.  I will send my friend this link so she can see what you've said and hopefully we can go from there, thank you

Savvy_Sue

Can't better elsien's advice, but perhaps worth saying that there is sometimes a mismatch between what people say is the way things are, and the way things are. 

For example, elsien has explained that hoisting is pretty much the last resort (not least because I think you'd normally have two members of staff involved?) so does Pamela understand that at the moment she cannot be independent as she would wish?