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Solving Problems in Long Term Care |
Newsletter May, 2006 1. Please join us at our next statewide meeting on Saturday, May 13, 2006 from 10:30 - 2:30 in the Lake Superior Room, Library of Michigan, 717 West Allegan, Lansing. (And please plan to join us on at the same time and place at our next meeting on July 15, 2006). New members always welcome! At the May meeting, we look forward to showing a special video, "Almost Home." This PBS documentary follows the lives of residents, staff, and residents’ families at a Milwaukee nursing home as the facility embarks on an effort to become less institutional and more person-centered and home-like. In a candid and compelling way, it looks at the struggles residents, staff, and families face as they deal with loss, change, and competing values and goals. For more information about the movie and culture change in nursing homes, or to order a copy of the video, go to: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/almosthome/film.htm 2. Campaign elects Bill Mania as our new statewide chairperson – At the March statewide meeting, Campaign members unanimously elected Bill Mania to be our new statewide chairperson. Congratulations, Bill! Bill resided in a nursing home for more than 6 years and is now living in his own apartment and receiving services and supports from the MiChoice Home and Community Based Waiver program. Bill was the long-time president of the resident council at his former facility, Medilodge of Bloomfield Hills, where he was a terrific advocate for his fellow residents. After leaving the nursing home in February, Bill received training from Citizens for Better Care to serve as a volunteer ombudsman and is now pleased to be advocating again for the residents of his former facility. As we noted in our last newsletter, Bill, along with the Campaign’s Southeastern Michigan coordinator, Toni Wilson, has been appointed by the Governor to the Long Term Care Supports and Services Advisory Commission. Bill also served as a moderator at a session on nursing home transitions at the Department of Community Health Long Term Care Conference in Troy in March, testified at a Senate appropriations hearing on behalf of the Campaign, and submitted testimony to a conference in Nashville. We appreciate all Bill’s efforts and look forward to working with him in the coming months. If you would like to contact Bill, you may e-mail him at Wild_Bill_Dead@yahoo.com or call him at 248-420-3087. 3. State moves closer to creating Single Points of Entry for long term care consumers. We need your help! –One of the strongest recommendations of the Governor’s Long Term Care Task Force was to create regional agencies where long term care consumers could seek information about options, screening for eligibility for various programs, assistance in developing a person-centered plan that reflects the consumer’s choices and preferences, and advocacy services if they encounter problems gaining access to services or in the quality of services they receive. The Single Points of Entry agencies are also supposed to use "Money Follows the Person" which means that funding would be available for whatever long term care support or service an eligible person selects. These agencies could dramatically reduce the confusion and inefficiency of our current system and go a long way to ensuring consumers get the services they want and need. Both the Administration and the legislature are moving forward to create these single point of entry agencies in Michigan. The Granholm Administration has reviewed 12 proposals from across the state to create pilot project single points of entry and will soon announce the selection of four agencies. The single points of entry in these regions are scheduled to begin providing services this summer; watch our website and email announcements for news of which sites the State selects for this pilot project. At the same time, Rep. Rick Shaffer and 41 other sponsors have introduced H.B. 5389. However, the trade group for the for profit nursing homes, HCAM, is opposing the bill, presumably because the nursing homes fear that people will choose home and community based care over nursing homes if given a real choice. The bill is now in front of the House Senior Health, Security and Retirement Committee. Please call or email your own Representative and the members of this committee (especially if you are in their districts) as soon as possible to express your strong support for this bill. Let your voice be heard--don't let the nursing home industry derail this important bill for consumers! The members are: * Barb VanderVeen 517-373-0838, repbarbvanderveen@house.mi.gov * Wm..VanRegenmorter 517-373-8900, wmvanreg@house.mi.gov * John Stahl 517-373-1800, johnstahl@house.mi.gov * John Proos 517-373-1403, johnproos@house.mi.gov * Paula Zelenko 517-373-3906, paulazelenko@house.mi.gov * Gino Polidori 517-373-0847, ginopolidori@house.mi.gov * Brenda Clack 517-373-8808, brendaclack@house.mi.gov * Kevin Green 517-373-2277, kevingreen@house.mi.gov * Aldo Vagnozzi 517-373-1793, aldovagnozzi@house.mi.gov 4. Michigan begins new, stricter criminal background checks for direct care workers--Nursing homes, hospitals with long term care beds, home health agencies, intermediate care facilities for the mentally retarded, and psychiatric facilities and inpatient programs must now comply with new laws requiring expanded criminal background checks for new employees. Under the new laws, effective April 1, 2006, these health care facilities or programs cannot employ, independently contract with, or grant clinical privileges to an individual who has regular direct access to or provides direct services to patients or residents until the health facility or agency conducts a criminal history background check, including a fingerprint check. An official from the Michigan Department of Community Health announced recently that the new system has already been used to screen approximately 4,000 job applicants in health care facilities and identified approximately 35 applicants who could not be employed because they had the kind of criminal background that would bar them from employment or because there were warrants for their arrest. 5. The National Citizens Coalition for Nursing Home Reform (NCCNHR) unveils "Faces of Neglect: Behind the Closed Doors of Nursing Homes" – On Friday, April 28, the National Citizens Coalition for Nursing Home Reform conducted a briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. to release a new book, Faces of Neglect: Behind the Closed Doors of Nursing Homes. This extraordinary book tells the stories of 36 residents in 12 states (Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) who experienced devastating neglect and abuse in nursing homes. NCCNHR produced Faces of Neglect both to attract national attention to nursing home problems and to demonstrate its opposition to tort reform which can limit or eliminate residents’ rights to seek compensation in court for the neglect or abuse they suffered. The timing of the book is particularly critical because Congress will soon be discussing a new tort reform proposal. With additional funding, NCCNHR hopes to produce a companion book, Faces of Quality, which will highlight the kinds of care all residents have a right to receive. To see portions of Faces of Neglect, go to NCCNHR’s website, www.nursinghomeaction.org. or www.nccnhr.org. In early May, NCCNHR will participate in another Congressional briefing with OWL (formerly the Older Women’s League) when OWL presents its annual Mother’s Day Report. This year’s report focuses on long term care and highlights that this is an important women’s issue. NCCNHR wrote the chapter of the report that deals with nursing homes. 6. Attorney General files suit against nursing home staff for negligent death of an oxygen-dependent resident and cover-Up of the incident–The Attorney General filed suit against eight employees of the Metron of Big Rapids nursing home for the death of an oxygen dependent resident after staff allegedly failed to replace the oxygen tank when it ran out. Cox is also alleging the staff engaged in a cover-up of the incident. To see a press release about the case, go to http://www.michigan.gov/ag/0,1607,07-164-34739-137206--,00.html 7. Two crucial positions overseeing long term care in the state remain unfilled– The state has not yet named the new Director of the Office of Long Term Care Supports and Services in the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH). This office will be the key government agency that oversees long term care reform in the state. In a careful selection process, MDCH invited representatives of all interested groups, including Alison Hirschel from the Campaign, to participate in interviews in March of nine candidates for the job. Recently, MDCH announced that it will conduct four additional interviews with candidates who were not interviewed in the first round. The interview committee will then make recommendations to the Department Director, Janet Olszewski, who will select the new director. MDCH has also not announced a new, permanent Director of the Bureau of Health Systems in MDCH, the agency that oversees licensing, survey and enforcement of nursing homes. A temporary bureau chief has been in place for a number of months. Both these positions are crucial to ensuring the state offers quality long term care options and moves our long term care reform goals forward. We urge the Administration to fill these positions with high quality candidates as soon as possible. 8. Rep. Vander Veen introduces new long term care bill–Rep. Barb Vander Veen has introduced in the state House H.B. 5762, a bill that creates in statute the Long Term Care Supports and Services Advisory Commission and moves many sections of existing state law relating to long term care to one place in Michigan law. Governor Granholm created the Commission by Executive Order at the recommendation of the Governor’s Medicaid Long Term Care Task Force, appointed 17 members including Campaign members Toni Wilson and Bill Mania to serve on it, and it has already met twice. This bill ensures the Commission will continue to exist. The bill has already been considered by and voted out of the House Senior Health, Security, and Retirement Committee which Rep. Vander Veen chairs.
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