Are nursing homes immoral?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Pixle_Catholic
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I have yet to meet any elderly person who wanted to go to a nursing home. The sad fact is that the way things are today, with a scarcity of family members able to care for the person, sophisticated medical procedures often necessary, and in-home care often not available or practical, we are often stuck with the nursing home option. Often the type or level of care someone needs is impossible for family members to provide (they aren’t strong enough, don’t have the specialized medical knowledge etc) and unless you are very rich, good luck getting doctors and nurses to come to your home to care for the person.

If my husband had become very ill, he would have had to go to a nursing home. My husband was a very large and heavy man. I could not have helped him to the bathroom or turned him in bed. If your mom is in a similar situation, then from a practical standpoint she may need help with his care. The nursing home is an option to consider.
 
JanR said:
And if relatives complain, their staffs and administrators tend to retaliate.
Click to expand...
More likely what happens is the resident with family to advocate for them wind up with more than their fair share of attention, because administration doesn’t want headaches, and the people who have no one get the short shrift because the extra time for the complaining person’s care has to come from somewhere.
 
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
40.png
JanR:
And if relatives complain, their staffs and administrators tend to retaliate.
Click to expand...
More likely what happens is the resident with family to advocate for them wind up with more than their fair share of attention, because administration doesn’t want headaches, and the people who have no one get the short shrift because the extra time for the complaining person’s care has to come from somewhere.
Click to expand...
Well, yes, that could also be the outcome.

However, I know of a lady who complained to the nursing home admins about how her mother was being treated while temporarily in their care, and she wanted to take her mother home with her, and they threatened to report her to adult protective services. That’s retaliation for complaining. There was nothing wrong with the daughter’s home, and she did get her mother out, eventually. Then I was hired to take care of her in their home.

Some of those people can be vindictive. It just depends on who is running the place.
 
Last edited:
Pixle_Catholic said:
My father does NOT want to go to a nursing home, at all. Would it be immoral to place him in a nursing home if he doesn’t want to go?
Click to expand...
I’m sorry this happened to your father and that you family is going though this.

I don’t think we can really answer this because we don’t have enough information.

Is it possible for your mother & father to BOTH move into a retirement community which has assisted living options?

I’m thinking of a home like https://www.actsretirement.org/

While they are not Catholic, this group was founded by a Protestant minister and is a pretty awesome organization. They are named after The Acts of the Apostles.

I highly suggest checking them out (they have communities up & down the East Coast, from New Jersey to Florida) or look for a similar organization near you (though I have NO IDEA which groups are like them).

God speed & may The Lord grant your family peace. Amen.
 
Last edited:
JanR said:
However, I know of a lady who complained to the nursing home admins about how her mother was being treated while temporarily in their care, and she wanted to take her mother home with her, and they threatened to report her to adult protective services.
Click to expand...
Yikes! That’s really scary 😱
 
Medicare does not pay for long term nursing home care, so that expense must be borne by the patient or family. And it is expensive. If the patient ultimately spends all his or her assets, Medicaid may pay, but I understand they will have a lien on any remaining assets.
 
Some private insurance policies help with that.

When I was taking care of folks in their homes, it seemed that Medicare did pick up some of the costs. I recall the family having to deal with its paperwork. But, maybe that was private insurance.

I think what Medicare paid for were the doctor visits and Part D prescription coverage.

I wasn’t paid very much as an in-home caregiver, so it couldn’t have been that expensive.
 
My wife inspected nursing homes for many years. Many nursing homes are run by corporations that have several homes in several states. She noticed that, in general, if one home run by say ABC Corporation is good then it is likely that all run by ABC would be good. If XYZ Corporation had a bad home most likely all of them would be bad.

I don’t think the homes are immoral in themselves. As others have said, if the family just wants to dump off a parent, then that’s the problem. Sometimes, a nursing home is a need.

If you find out you need a nursing home, you can go to your state’s website and look up the results of the home’s inspection by the state. That will tell you if the home is decent or not. Don’t expect a perfect score - look at what problem was cited. Sometimes all a home has a problem with is some paperwork, something like that is minor. Sometimes it’s more serious. That can help with your decision.

Pax
 
fredystairs said:
My wife inspected nursing homes for many years. Many nursing homes are run by corporations that have several homes in several states. She noticed that, in general, if one home run by say ABC Corporation is good then it is likely that all run by ABC would be good. If XYZ Corporation had a bad home most likely all of them would be bad.

I don’t think the homes are immoral in themselves. As others have said, if the family just wants to dump off a parent, then that’s the problem. Sometimes, a nursing home is a need.

If you find out you need a nursing home, you can go to your state’s website and look up the results of the home’s inspection by the state. That will tell you if the home is decent or not. Don’t expect a perfect score - look at what problem was cited. Sometimes all a home has a problem with is some paperwork, something like that is minor. Sometimes it’s more serious. That can help with your decision.

Pax
Click to expand...
Problems with paperwork can be serious, if they involve the submission of insurance claims or other things that really do adversely affect a resident. Paperwork would also include charting, in which inaccuracies can directly affect a resident’s health and/or treatment. I wouldn’t call paperwork problems minor, as they could indicate sloppiness.
 
Last edited:
At times, people only see two options: care at home or care via a nursing home.

There is at least a third option, and that is often referred to as adult foster care. I would presume those are regulated by the state just as I would presume nursing homes are regulated (which is not to say that all states do a good job). My family had excellent results with one.
 
I am in my fifties, and I don’t think I could give 95% care of another adult alone on my own. I would look into visiting nurses or CNAs to help with grooming/medicine and maybe even some help with housekeeping.

My mom was a very experienced nurse and felt terrible that she couldn’t take care of her own mother. My grandmother was in congestive heart failure and unknown to us at the time, renal failure.

My mom had looked into several nursing homes in our area and wasn’t too pleased. I started praying to Padre Pio for help for my mom and grandmother. Shorty thereafter my mom ran into a lady she knew and found out that this lady’s mother had just passed away and her final months were at a nursing home that mom had never heard of before. A Franciscan run residential/nursing home. It turned out to be lovely fit for my grandmother. She had daily Mass, the sacraments, and excellent people both in staff and residents. It was a gift that my grandmother was able to be there.

BTW my grandmother didn’t ever want to be in a nursing home, but my mom told her she could return home if she could get her strength back. My grandmother then accepted staying there.

There may be several options for your parents. Please consider asking for Heavenly help In discerning what or where to get help.
 
JanR said:
Problems with paperwork can be serious, if they involve the submission of insurance claims or other things that really do adversely affect a resident. Paperwork would also include charting, in which inaccuracies can directly affect a resident’s health and/or treatment. I wouldn’t call paperwork problems minor, as they could indicate sloppiness.
Click to expand...
You are correct, they can be serious. I was thinking along the line of say posting a note on one form and not on another. More serious issues would bed sores and drastic weight loss in patients or giving out the wrong medications.

Pax
 
My wife’s stepmom is in a Lutheran nursing home near us. The care they give is wonderful! The assisted living facility she was in previously was not so great. She was robbed of all personal items and often found by my father-in-law (who was there daily) in a mess.
 
When people go, “well, in the good old days, people cared for their elderly parents at home…” they forget to add “and then they died earlier and in more pain.”
 
In the good old days, doctors made house calls. If pain management was needed, a doctor could come in and give a prescription or teach the family how to manage it for their elderly parents.

As for dying earlier, medicine wasn’t as advanced as it is, today, so there weren’t the treatments available to make living longer possible.
 
JimG said:
Medicare does not pay for long term nursing home care, so that expense must be borne by the patient or family. And it is expensive. If the patient ultimately spends all his or her assets, Medicaid may pay, but I understand they will have a lien on any remaining assets.
Click to expand...
What a state may recover for Medicaid expenses depends to some extent on the state. For example, the law was changed in California a few years ago so that now they can only recover from assets that enter probate. This means that the state cannot recover from any property such as a house that has been placed in a trust and passes to heirs outside of probate.
 
JanR said:
In the good old days, doctors made house calls. If pain management was needed, a doctor could come in and give a prescription or teach the family how to manage it for their elderly parents.

As for dying earlier, medicine wasn’t as advanced as it is, today, so there weren’t the treatments available to make living longer possible.
Click to expand...
I’m not blaming anyone for doing the best they could with the resources they had available. Just pointing out that with life expectancy being much longer, a lot of elderly people have needs that are beyond the capacity of laypeople at home.
 
Thorolfr said:
What a state may recover for Medicaid expenses depends to some extent on the state.
Click to expand...
Correct. Medicaid is a federal/state partnership and state are allowed a great deal of latitude on how they do things. Regulations can vary widely from state to state.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top