Care Partners  Rehabilitation Hospital in Asheville NC.
I found myself having to go back to a place I never wanted to go again. I had to go to Care partners to pick up a copy of my Mothers medical records.
I requested them over two weeks ago, and was given the usual runaround you get from these places. I was finally able to convince the lady that it was not my fault she went on vacation. She printed the records as I drove across town to pick them up.
When I arrived at Care Partners in Asheville NC, I was told to wait in the family room. It is a room I had sat in with my Mother just last year. While I was sitting there waiting, a patient in a motorized wheelchair came in with another woman.I was trying not to listen to their conversation, but the room is only so big, and I was already sitting when they came in.
The poor lady in the wheelchair was telling the other lady about the way she was being treated. I was doing my best not to get up and tell her how to complain, but I refrained from doing so. As I listened the lady in the wheelchair told the other lady, how the nurses assistants would not change her diaper when she asked, she talked about how her dr., Doctor Diez told her they were going to take out some sort of port the next morning. She said when the nurse came in she told her they would do it later, then the second shift nurse told her the same thing. Then she said the third shift nurse came in and was very nasty to her. She said she had been laying in her own excrement for some time and they were not changing her diaper. Then the third shift nurse removed the port, and the cna changed her diaper.She was crying as she spoke.The woman in the wheelchair was actually asking to be released, or where else she could go for her treatment.
 It was hard to listen to, knowing that the same sort of things probably happened to my Mother, when no one was there with her. Mom was one of the lucky ones that survive care partners, she had someone there almost all the time. There was one occasion, that I actually had to assist the cna in changing my Mothers diaper. There were not enough people working for someone to assist her. I am not complaining that I had to do what I did, but it was uncomfortable for me, and I can imagine how uncomfortable it was for Mom.
I know that Congresswoman Gifford was in Care Partners Rehabilitation Hospital, for rehab. I seriously doubt that she received this sort of treatment. I can only speculate that the woman in the wheelchair was either medicare or medicaid. I'm almost positive that people with private insurance are treated better than the rest.
This is a sad reality. We the people have to act or react, in order for things to get better. Ask your representative about their position on healthcare for the elderly. This is election season, let your vote count for something. You may end up in one of these places at any point in your life. The lady in the wheelchair was probably not even forty years old.
Make a difference, pay attention if you go to one of these places to visit someone, look around. I can assure you that whatever you see wrong is just the tip of the iceberg. Ask questions, get mad, do something to help
.If only I had the chance to go back one year, I would certainly not let them slide at all.