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Supervisors reluctantly cut one of two senior ombudsman positions
You live in a nursing home, you're frail and you've suffered some dementia. Yet you're asked that if you become critically ill or injured, do you want doctors to resuscitate you or let you die?
It's a legal document, and some seniors may have trouble understanding the questions being asked.
That's where an ombudsman comes in — to clearly explain what the document says and to act in the senior's interests, says Wendy Moore, San Joaquin County's deputy director of aging and community services.
"A lot of people don't have family and friends to help," Moore said.
And even if they do, who says a family member wouldn't rather pull the plug on an aging relative in order to claim an inheritance, Moore said.
San Joaquin County has two paid ombudsmen who oversee about 40 volunteers. However, due to a $62,609 cut in state funding, the county Board of Supervisors reluctantly voted on Nov. 25 to eliminate one of the two paid positions.
Jill Hernandez, one of the two paid ombudsmen for the county, said the state budget cut will require her to prioritize complaints from nursing home residents more and attend to the more critical issues first.
The state's funding cut for the ombudsman program is one of several senior programs that were cut by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger after the Legislature adopted the state budget in September.
Hernandez says she doesn't know when the other paid position will be cut.
Mike Locke
Mike Locke, a Downtown Lodi business owner, has volunteered as an ombudsman for almost two years. He serves in the interest of residents at two skilled nursing and three residential care facilities in Lodi.
Locke, 58, said he tells nursing home employees, "If there's a problem, I will address the problem as if it is your mother or father."
He looks into complaints made by residents and occasionally works out problems with family members. It's quite common where, for example, two sisters have power of attorney for their loved one's health care, but they fight with two other sisters without power of attorney, and want to be in control.
A major problem among families of late, Locke said, is that adult children of nursing home or residential care residents take their money and use their checks and credit cards. Locke said he watches out for those kinds of problems and reports them to authorities.
Complains range from "My breakfast is cold this morning," to severe abuse and neglect. And everything in between, Hernandez said.
"It will leave (Hernandez) manning the phone, and she won't be able to go out in the field as much," Locke said.
The ombudsmen also field random questions about senior issues that aren't necessarily complaints — such as "Where do I get this?" or "Who do I call for that?" Hernandez said. They also make attorney referrals for seniors and explain Medi-Cal issues to family members.
Volunteer ombudsmen must be certified, have hours of training and be fingerprinted before they can help seniors, Moore said. But they need paid staff to bounce situations off and to tend to more complicated matters, such as communicating with law enforcement, Moore said.
"This is not a bloated program; I can 1,000 percent guarantee that," Moore said. "You know the expression 'Cut the fat'? We're into the bone and muscle at this point."
Contact reporter Ross Farrow at rossf@lodinews.com.
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OTH wrote on Dec 29, 2008 8:29 PM:
And some if asked to work lean and mean might move on which would be a good thing for everyone. "
wtf wrote on Dec 29, 2008 12:07 PM:
Everyone is tightening their belt; but, unless people were hired within the last two years, no one has to go, just reduce their salary to the 2006 levels.
Some government agencies **are** bloated and should further reduce their 2006 budget by 30%. Yes, it would mean operating lean and mean; but people would still have jobs and, just maybe, certain government employees would become more efficient. "
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