Nursing Assistant Resources On The Web

Anticipating the effects of Hurricane Rita, Texas nursing homes are evacuating. But it’s not going as smoothly as they would like, appearently.

AUSTIN – Nursing home operators along Texas’ Gulf Coast are finding that even with evacuation plans in place, they’re having trouble moving the frail and elderly out of Hurricane Rita’s path.

Private bus companies canceled promised service, saying they had agreed to help evacuate more nursing homes than they could. Two nursing home owners said state emergency management officials had taken control of ambulances that their homes had counted on to transport their sickest residents.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry denied that the state seized ambulances but said the Federal Emergency Management Agency “is contracting with a number of ambulance companies to move resources around as they are needed.”

FEMA spokesman Ross Fredenburg said the agency had no role in evacuations, and he knew of no contracts for ambulances.

After nightmarish accounts of failed evacuations of New Orleans nursing homes after Hurricane Katrina, the agency that regulates long-term care in Texas said last week that it checked not only that homes had transportation plans but that contractors could carry out such plans.

Still, many of the arrangements were falling through.

“We just got bad news,” said Matt Robinson, owner of a home with 120 residents in southeast Harris County. “Our ambulance service that was going to transfer eight of our critically ill patients, those ambulances have been commandeered by the state to go to Matagorda. And so we’re in search of an ambulance company at the moment.”

Let’s hope things get better down there, and fast. Read the rest of this article—>