One of my Facebook friends, a woman I worked with many years ago, has a son who lives in a special group home for people with both autism and mental retardation. (He appears to function on the level of about a 10- to 12-year-old, and I suspect he has some kind of genetic syndrome because he is very short.) She said (paraphrasing) earlier today, “I try to keep my personal life off Facebook, but there is no excuse for people who work in these places to do something like that.” We’re not talking about a single missing item; we’re talking about money not being deposited in his personal account, concert tickets and other items that should have been placed in their safe that seemingly vaporized into thin air, and it’s happened enough times that she realized it’s no coincidence. She has contacted the police, and other people suggested that she also contact the state licensing board, The Arc, and other organizations which advocate for the disabled.
People who harm those who can’t defend themselves are the lowest form of human life on earth. :mad:
Sounds like there’s an embezzler in the administrative staff, who quite possibly is also embezzling from the nursing home itself. The thefts from the inmate(s) may be only the tip of a very dirty iceberg.
This lady posted today that her son’s belongings magically reappeared when the facility got word of the police report. It’s not that he’s so low-functioning that he can’t live with her; he lives in this place because he needs more socialization than she could ever provide for him, and in addition, her elderly mother has moved in with her and her husband and needs care of her own. She said that the facility was taken over by a different company since he moved in, and has gone downhill in every way by the day. It’s paid for by the state and his disability payment.
His parents divorced in the early 00s (not because of him; they were horribly mismatched) and his father died in 2015. His brother lives in the city where they grew up but it would not be feasible for them to live together.
I hope the police don’t drop the case just because some at least of his stuff came back; I daresay a competent forensic examination of the books would uncover all sorts of nefarious goings-on.
Very much so, at least insofar as ownership is a nebulous concept. My late father-in-law had the remote for his DVD player stolen. Absolutely useless to anybody but him and it just freakin’ disappears.
My late grandmother had the one remaining copy of the photo of her and my late grandfather kissing on the beach on their honeymoon stolen from her room in her memory care facility. Who on Earth would do that, and WHY?
The weird, senseless, random-seeming thefts of easily portable objects y’all have been describing could be by patients/inmates with dementia or other mental disabilities.
Or cleaning staff who just don’t care.
"Oops, I accidently dropped that picture on the floor and shattered the glass.Dammit, what a mess…I’ll just toss it all out. And quickly, before the boss asks me why I havent finished yet.And then they’ll make me pay for a new frame.
“What’s that TV remote doing here in the wrong room, where there’s no TV? I’ll just throw it away, otherwise I’ll have to go to 30 different rooms asking about it, and then the boss will catch me being a half-hour late mopping the dining room floor.”
None of these things were meant to be in his room; she gave them to staff members to be placed in a safe or deposited in his spending-money account. No client should ever have had access to them.
In the meantime, she said that she had previously filed an abuse report against a staff member. Her son is verbal, so IDK how this person thought they were going to get away with it.
As an adult, my sister contracted MS and eventually was quadriplegic and bedridden. We chose home care, in her own home. It wasn’t-round-the clock but instead two shifts during the day.
Unfortunately, over time I developed a low opinion and deep suspicion of the people who did the job of providing care. I accept that it is a very difficult dirty job that I would not want to do. I also find it very unfortunate that it is also very low paying, which like it or not does not attract the best of our society. It seems that access to a helpless persons money, possessions, and narcotics, is too tempting to too many people who are home care givers. I know this is not everyone who does this job, but boy is it too many of them.
Yes, unfortunately, **Icarus ** is right. I once had a patient complain the CNA ( home health aide) stole a 12 pack of Coke. I thought…those are what, $4 when not on sale? Why would anyone steal a $4 item? but yep, the home health aide had indeed stolen a case of Cokes. Of course, she was fired. But, seriously WTF was she thinking?
That’s one possibility. Another possibility is that the patient with dementia simply discarded the object (gave it away, whatev) and simply forgot about it.
I’ve hauled many a person out of a retirement home/assisted living/nursing home to the ER; many for dubious reasons other than the staff didn’t want to deal with them. You’re right; they’re paid shit, & many times you get what you pay for.
To take care of a human who can no longer take care of themselves we pay people barely above minimum wage, but to a select group who can throw, catch, hit, kick, or dribble a ball of various sizes & shapes we pay people millions. Effed up world we live in.
A home health aide was stealing my dad’s modafinil (NuVigil/Provigil). Replacing it with similarly shaped Tylenol.
I was mad about the dishonesty, but as my girlfriend pointed out: what if it had not just been something to keep him awake, but something he needed to stay alive? The callousness … and stupidity, too (I noticed it when I did my weekly pillbox-filling) … and the betrayal of trust.