Putting Care back in Care Centers

America’s current economic status has been the source of a big headache to its citizens. Whether it caught up with you at the gas pump, the grocery store, or when you opened your smaller than average paycheck, everyone has felt the effects of it. Due to this problem, it seems that several cutbacks have become necessary. Companies are looking for ways to eliminate expenses. These eliminations have ranged from eliminating employee bonuses, or in some cases, eliminating employees. I recognize that companies are struggling, and these cutbacks are the only thing that is helping them to survive. However, it is my opinion that there are certain fields of work that simply can’t afford to have cutbacks. Care centers are places that should not have the luxury of cutting corners to save a few bucks. Further, I believe that stricter regulations should be imposed to ensure that care centers cannot fall below certain standards when they are looking to save money.

                A care center is an establishment that has been given the duty of caring for the elderly who can no longer care for themselves. No doubt, it can turn into a messy and unpleasant job. The nurses who work here have to be amazing people. They have been given the responsibility of safeguarding lives and this is precisely the reason that care centers cannot afford to make cutbacks. Most cutbacks that a care center could conceivably make would either directly or indirectly hurt their patents. If any establishment would knowingly make cutbacks that would affect those under their care, they cannot be considered a care center at all. It seems that they would have forgotten that their primary objective and concern should be for their patients, not the thickness of their wallets.

                It is probably fair to assume that no one has any feelings regarding a care center unless they have a loved one living there, or they work there. It is hard to care about something that just doesn’t make a difference in your life. There was a time that care centers did not make a difference in my life. All of that changed when my grandpa was placed in one after he had a severe stroke. This place that he was confined to for five months of his life was only marginally better than a prison. Why? The sad but true reason for this was that this care center had been making budget cuts in order to stay afloat under the pressures of the struggling economy.

                When my grandpa was first placed at this care center, things weren’t so bad. It was obvious that the place was understaffed, the nurses were run ragged. Although they were extremely overworked and lacked the appropriate amount of help, the nurses held up pretty well under the pressure. Over the course of the next few weeks, things kept getting worse. One of the first things that changed was that a new stench settled in the air. Properly cleaning was the first thing the nurses started to slack on. They simply did not have enough people to keep the building cleaned at an acceptable standard. The nurses became slower to respond to calls. When they showed up, they would apologize and explain that more of their colleagues had been laid off.

                Gradually, the nursing staff started to change as well. Not only were they overworked and understaffed, they were also underpaid. Reduction in their paychecks was another thing done by the management to save money. As you can imagine, smaller paychecks caused the nurses to become agitated. My grandpa started getting strange injuries; bumps, bruises, and even a missing tooth. All of these injuries went unexplained by the nursing staff. It was hard to even find a nurse to ask them a question, and if we did their answers were always unclear and evasive. My family developed a rotation schedule so that we could always have a family member at the care center because we could no longer trust the nurses.

                I will never forget the night that I accidentally wandered into the wrong room. The resident of this room was a feeble old woman with sunken eyes. She seemed eager to talk to me so I stayed for a while. When I got up to leave, she begged me to stay. She confided in me that the nurses no longer spoke with her and they barely acknowledged her. She told me that my voice was the first human voice that she had heard in days besides the T.V. It was truly a heartbreaking experience.

                The day my grandpa received the approval to return home was the best day that we had at the care center. I walked out of there and didn’t care to ever come back to a place like that again. However, it was almost a year later that I found myself inside another care center. What I found was astounding. The air in this second care center was fresh and pure. The patients seemed lively. Although the nurses were busy, they weren’t run down. This was a dramatic change from what my experience had taught me about care centers. Upon further examination, the reason for this difference became evident. In this care center, there was one nurse to about every seven patients. After all of the budget cuts had been completed at the prison my grandpa had been at, there was one nurse to about every 15 patients. It was frustrating to me to fully realize that all of the abuse that occurred in the other care center was directly related to a misuse of funds.

                Having to place a loved one in a care center is a difficult thing. Since the first word of care center is care, I believe that they need to be held to that. These institutions should help make a difficult time less painful. They are there to provide adequate care, but they can’t do that unless they are properly staffed and paid. Laws need to be in effect to more closely regulate care centers so that the patients can receive the help and attention they need.