Comments on: Wheel Chair Abuse

By: Jeri Kay

Jeri Kay — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:16:53 +0000

I simply love this post. Not only is it true, but it depicts every facility that I have worked in for the past eleven years. I have waited many years to see a solution, however it just seems as though as soon as there is an idea of what to do, it ends up reverting back to the same objective which is simply this, do the “right”
thing when mangaement is looking, but just forget about it after they have left for the day. Not only does this concept come to failure each time, but it ends up making chaos between the shifts in which use wheelchairs. I honestly cannot blame first shift for being angry as they are forced to walk each and every resident to and from both meals as well as in between times. Now don’t get me wrong, I am all for the perfect independence of a resident, but when you are caring for eighty residents, only have three staff memebers(when you are used to five), and the rehab nurse is barking orders to walk everyone, I believe that I would be a bit upset, not because I have to walk everyone but, when it comes to second shift, after the boss is gone the rules begin to change. Either way, I would love for there to be a solution that everyone could learn to live with. Even though I know that this article would sadly fail at my facility, it would most certainly be worth a try! Thank you for such an encouraging post!

By: Holly

Holly — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 05:50:42 +0000

Thank you for this! I see this problem with both residents at my facility and especially a family member I have at a LTC facility. He could walk 3 months ago and probably still could if he didn’t have a tab alarm and wheelchair to prohibit him. His gait is unsteady, but a little more therapy and practice would give him so much more independence. Some places will just slide with whatever is easiest for the cash-strapped facility and overworked aides. Including taking 5 less minutes to walk my uncle to meals– it only takes half a minute to wheel him there. Unfortunetly this leads to great and rapid declines in so many folks who could get better and live more independently. Vicious cycle.. so sad.

By: andy

andy — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:37:26 +0000

Thanks for this post where I work we have been complaing about the over use of wheel chairs for years every time we get a new person we give them a wheel chair and a urinal and most of them give up and don’t try to help themselves