slander

The Department of Aging and Disability services is a regulatory agency that looks out for the best interest of assisted living and nursing home residents. It works with paid staff and volunteer ombudsmen who have gone through background checks and intensive training. Criminal checks are also run on applicants for the protection of the agency's reputation and of course the residents safety. Volunteers come from all walks of life: ministers, sales persons, social workers, ect. I'm one of those volunteers an I happen to be a nurse.

I loved going to my assigned nursing home and making friends of the residents. Sometimes it was like a first meeting every time! I really fell in love with them, the ninety five year old lady whose response every time I asked her how she was doing was, "I'm fit as a fiddle!" The little lady who sat in the hallway watching the goings-on like it was her front porch, the couple whose wife had Alzheimer’s and he was there daily to care for his bride of sixty something years. The couple whose husband is on hospice, dying. I've come to think of them as family.

Yes. I loved these people.Unfortunately the staff was nervous about my unpredictable visits. The activity director complained I followed her around and made her nervous. I've only seen her three times in five months, I go mostly in the evenings and weekends. Boy, the stress I've placed her under. I hope she seeks counseling. I explained I was the new kid on the block and I was learning the ropes. If walking and talking with someone who's had their job for several years made her nervous, I wonder why? I kept informing her what a wonderful job she was doing, maybe she had a reason to not believe me? There really wasn't much variety on her activities list.

If questioning the week end charge nurse about a residents chest pains made her uneasy, imagine how the resident with the chest pains felt. If suggesting they put names and pictures on the doors so staff and confused residents could find their rooms was wrong; oh, well. Or better yet, if they would just put a door up on a bathroom that opened into the hallway so residents could use it without making it a spectator sport.

So if a nursing home doesn't want to be regulated what can they do? Nothing, they can't interfere with an ombudsman's job. Oh, wait, yes they can. They can lie. New invention? Nope. It started in a garden years ago by a slippery little fella named Satan. The nursing home administrator can call the paid ombudsman and tell her that the volunteer, who came too often and asked to many questions, was seen taking pictures right and left with a camera, violating resident's privacy. Once again, did I mention I was a registered nurse? That means I have HIPPA and patient confidentiality imprinted on my brain. I think I know not to bring a camera and go to town in a nursing home like a tourist.

Can you spell s l a n d e r. In case you can't spell it, here's the definition:

slan·der (slndr)n.
1. Law: Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation.
2. A false and malicious statement or report about someone.

Oh, yeah, that is right, the nursing home had me removed without so much as a trial. I've never even met the administrator to defend myself. No. He just went on hearsay. Lies, no soft soaping it: Lies, lies lies. I've lost my little family of residents that I've come to admire. I've lost my good name. I've almost lost my desire to help the helpless. Volunteer work doesn't pay enough for this heart ache. You must really love what you do to put up with this kind of abuse. My boss believed me;I hope. She offered me a choice of other nursing homes that need a volunteer. Homes that are actually closer to mine, convenient for me to make more spontaneous appearances. Homes with more problems. Oh, great, so if they don't like me pointing these problems out what will they do? And there is always the possibility of a shadow of a doubt now existing in my boss's mind because of slander: " false statements injurious to a person's reputation."

I want to suggest filing a complaint that if it was true, that I was photographing residents, the nursing home should have had me escorted out by their security guards, and this should be on record somewhere: evidence! It seems they should be guilty of neglect. I could ask them to produce witnesses, but they could do as Jesus' accusers did, ask the staff they pay to lie also? It's against the law to hinder ombudsmen in their work, but it seems if you don't want to be regulated it's entirely acceptable to slander, i.e. to lie, about whoever it is that happens to be regulating you. If the word gets out, all the nursing home administrators will be looking for tall tales to tell,(excuse me, I mean fabricating tall tales!). It should be easy, they don't seem to have to provide proof of their allegations. This could be the beginning of the end for regulatory agencies.