Marie Freyre died in the care of a $506-per-day nursing home — sobbing, shaking and screaming for her real home.
She never saw her Minnie Mouse plush toy, her Winnie the Pooh or her Cabbage Patch Kids again. She never again saw her Mami or her Abuela.
Marie had been taken to the Florida Club Care Center against her
mother’s wishes. Social workers insisted the Miami Gardens nursing home
was the safest place for the 14-year-old, who suffered from, among other
things, cerebral palsy and seizures. But the evening Marie arrived,
records show, nurses did not give her life-sustaining medications and
she may have had no food except applesauce.
When Marie struggled to breathe in the two hours before she died, no one at the nursing home called a doctor.
-from today's Miami Herald.
It's not a "sad death," as the headline states. It is an outrageous death.
This was on the front page, above the crease of this morning's print edition. This sort of story is why I continue to subscribe to the Herald despite its enormously annoying editorial policy in so many other respects. Now and then their reporters turn over a rock with some really awful stuff living underneath.
The Florida Bar News is already onto this problem.
Showing posts with label Sick kids in nursing homes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sick kids in nursing homes. Show all posts
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Thursday, October 04, 2012
"Hidden [Medically Fragile] Children" in Florida Nursing Homes
“The hidden children” is how Clinical Professor Paolo Annino [of FSU Law School's Public Interest Law Center] refers to these “medically fragile” children, tucked into pediatric wings of Florida nursing homes designed for geriatric patients, like the grandmother Van Erem used to visit when she was a girl.
How these children wound up on ventilators and feeding tubes and tracheotomies varies: near drowning in swimming pools, being shaken as infants, infantile cerebral palsy, car crashes, genetic disorders.
What they have in common is the need for nursing care 24/7, and some of them have families who want them to live at home if they are afforded sufficient services.
“The saddest part of all is not that these children have nowhere to go. That’s what a lot of people would assume,” Van Erem said. “A lot of families are asking for support and want their children at home. Our goal is to get these children back with their families, with adequate support.”
-from "Law Students fight to bring the 'hidden children' home" in the October 1, 2012, issue of the Florida Bar News.
According to the article, there are 221 children in Florida nursing homes. "With adequate support," some of them can go home. Adequate support may, in fact be available. Getting the families of those children that support is a complex issue in some cases, one apparently needing a lawyer (or a law student) to help with the red tape.
What about families who are just short of support? Who in the private sector might cover the shortfall? What about the children with no families? Who will visit them?
How these children wound up on ventilators and feeding tubes and tracheotomies varies: near drowning in swimming pools, being shaken as infants, infantile cerebral palsy, car crashes, genetic disorders.
What they have in common is the need for nursing care 24/7, and some of them have families who want them to live at home if they are afforded sufficient services.
“The saddest part of all is not that these children have nowhere to go. That’s what a lot of people would assume,” Van Erem said. “A lot of families are asking for support and want their children at home. Our goal is to get these children back with their families, with adequate support.”
-from "Law Students fight to bring the 'hidden children' home" in the October 1, 2012, issue of the Florida Bar News.
According to the article, there are 221 children in Florida nursing homes. "With adequate support," some of them can go home. Adequate support may, in fact be available. Getting the families of those children that support is a complex issue in some cases, one apparently needing a lawyer (or a law student) to help with the red tape.
What about families who are just short of support? Who in the private sector might cover the shortfall? What about the children with no families? Who will visit them?
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