Nobody knows what's going on inside Colorado's nursing homes better
than Virginia Fraser.
One recent morning, Fraser spent several hours visiting the
Cherrelyn nursing home in Littleton, introducing herself to residents
as their ombudsman. "I'm here to advocate for the people who live
here," she told an elderly woman with carefully coiffed red hair,
who simply smiled and nodded.
Walking down the corridor of one of the state's largest nursing
homes, Fraser stopped to visit with a woman named Dorothy, who suffers
from multiple sclerosis. Dorothy has been in Cherrelyn for several
years; Fraser helped her when she needed to move to a new room.
"The ombudsman is a mediator," says Dorothy, who uses a
wheelchair. "They showed me a room that was decorated too fancy;
it was too feminine. I didn't like it. The ombudsman met with the
manager and helped me find this room."
Dorothy enjoys sports and doesn't like the room too hot, unlike
many of Cherrelyn's other female residents. With the ombudsman's help,
she found a roommate who shared her interests.
"Heaven knows how long things would have gone on without the
ombudsman," she says.
For two decades, Fraser served as director of the Colorado
Ombudsman Program, which advocates for residents of long-term-care
facilities in the state. The ombudsman's office assists seniors,
asking them if they're having any problems and taking their complaints
to management. Fraser transformed Colorado's ombudsman office from a
one-person operation into a widely admired force, a program recognized
as one of the best in the country. In the process, Fraser has earned a
national reputation among advocates for the elderly.
"She's been a national leader on residents' rights," says
Elma Holder, founder of the National Coalition for Nursing Home
Reform. "She's always been relied upon to be wise and supportive
of other people around the country."
Fraser is in the unusual position of being respected by both the
nursing-home industry and its critics.
"I think she's done a wonderful job," says Arlene Miles,
head of the Colorado Healthcare Association, which represents 178
nursing homes around the state. "She's dedicated her whole life
to working toward positive ways of improving care."
Despite this record of achievement, Fraser stepped down as state
ombudsman last month. Her resignation was prompted by a proposal from
the Department of Human Services that would have restricted the
ombudsman's ability to talk to legislators and the media about
problems in Colorado's homes for the elderly.
"The restrictions from the state were getting worse and
worse," says Fraser. "It was ridiculous."
By this past spring, Fraser directed a staff of forty paid and a
hundred volunteer ombudsmen across Colorado. They are charged with
visiting 242 nursing homes as well as 507 personal-care boarding
homes, which provide assisted living and other services for the more
able-bodied elderly. For many of the 30,000 residents of these
facilities, the visiting ombudsman may be the only person who bothers
to ask how they are doing and whether they're receiving the care they
need. Last year the ombudsman's office collected nearly 12,000
complaints from residents of long-term-care facilities.
The ombudsmen have no legal authority to fine nursing homes or
force owners to improve care; they simply act as the residents' eyes
and ears and try to get the management to respond. And although the
ombudsman program's director prepares an annual report for the
Colorado Legislature on issues related to long-term care, she has no
real power other than that of persuasion.
Still, the ombudsman's office has made powerful enemies, and they
just happen to be some of the biggest campaign contributors to the
state Republican party and Governor Bill Owens: Ralph and Trish Nagel,
owners of the Meridian chain of retirement communities.
Governor Owens has appointed both Nagels to important state
positions. Ralph Nagel serves as chairman of the Colorado Commission
on Higher Education, which sets budgets and policy for the state's
colleges and universities. In 1998, Trish Nagel served on a transition
committee that helped the newly elected governor choose a director for
the Department of Public Health and Environment -- the very agency
that regulates nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. Later,
she was appointed to the state Science and Technology Commission.
And the Nagels haven't hesitated to play politics. Ralph Nagel has
publicly described the ombudsmen as "vigilantes," and the
Nagels' company has prevented ombudsmen who show up at Meridian homes
from talking to their residents. Since Meridian doesn't accept any
Medicare or Medicaid payments, the Nagels insist that the ombudsmen
have no legal right to be in their facilities, even though Colorado
law doesn't make a distinction between private-pay facilities and
those that accept federal funds. According to the statute that
established the State Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, "The
State shall ensure that representatives of the Office shall have
access to long-term care facilities and residents."
And the Nagels have fought other proposals intended to help protect
nursing-home residents, even opposing a state regulation requiring
nursing homes to publicly disclose unexplained deaths, medical
mistakes and reports of sexual abuse. Such allegations, the Nagels
argue, should be investigated by the health department before being
revealed to the public.
The Nagels' well-known antipathy toward the ombudsman program has
led others in the health-care field to speculate that their influence
may have been a factor in the proposal to prevent the ombudsman
program's director from speaking out on behalf of the elderly.
"Virginia Fraser has done an excellent job. I don't think you
can replace someone like her," says Jeff Jerebker, president of
Pinon Management, a local chain that runs eighteen nursing homes.
"The government has left her alone for years. Why muzzle her
now?"
Trish Nagel, however, insists that Meridian had nothing to do with
any proposed changes in the ombudsman program.
"In no way was Meridian involved in the Ombudsman's
resignation," she said in a written statement provided to Westword.
"We were as surprised as anyone when Ms. Fraser chose to resign
her position. Based on Ms. Fraser's published statements, she resigned
because she could no longer honor the terms of a longstanding contract
her employer had with the state. To blame Meridian or others for her
personal decision would be false and irresponsible."
Fraser herself declined to comment on Meridian, noting the ongoing
dispute between the ombudsman's office and the Nagels over access to
Meridian sites.
Fraser's resignation came as a shock to hundreds of people around
the state who had worked with her over the years. But she says she
came to feel she had no choice but to resign, leaving behind a program
she'd spent a big part of her life building.
"[The state was] saying they were going to speak for the
ombudsman and they would make the policy decisions," says Fraser.
"It was outrageous. I decided this isn't working for me. Enough
already." The 72-year-old Fraser believes she made a statement by
stepping down, and she hopes the ensuing uproar will remind state
bureaucrats of just how valued ombudsmen are in Colorado.
"I feel pretty good about dropping this bombshell," she
says with a smile.
Virginia Fraser suspects she knows precisely what first incurred
the Nagels' wrath.
It was the 1993 annual report issued by her office. In a section on
personal-care boarding homes -- a broad category that includes
assisted-living centers such as Meridian -- Fraser included one
paragraph that alluded to the chain but didn't mention it by name.
"In larger assisted-living facilities," the paragraph
read, "the majority of complaints have come this year from one
ownership group concerning contracts which allow management to
determine when and why residents are no longer 'appropriate.' In
addition, they limit the ability of a resident to access Medicare
benefits by insisting on 'their' provider, who is not Medicare
certified. They have refused to allow ombudsmen posters and have
attempted to deny access in certain circumstances."
The Meridian chain has five homes in the metro area, with a total
of more than 1,500 residents. The company offers three different
levels of housing, including independent-living apartments for people
who don't need help with day-to-day tasks, assisted living for those
who need some help, and small nursing homes in two of the facilities
that care for people with more severe problems. The target population
is the relatively healthy -- and wealthy -- elderly.
Meridian's homes are among the most expensive in the metro area,
with apartments going for as much as $3,000 per month and rooms in
nursing homes costing $50,000 to $70,000 annually. The complexes offer
a dazzling number of recreational amenities, from Jacuzzis to on-site
restaurants. Most Meridian residents say they like living there, and
they give the company high marks for helping them enjoy their golden
years.
Because the chain doesn't accept Medicare or Medicaid, residents
must pay all expenses themselves. Meridian makes it clear that those
with serious health problems such as Alzheimer's must go elsewhere.
The idea behind the three levels of care is that as residents age,
they can move from one level to another. However, the contract
Meridian residents sign says that company management always has the
final say in what level of care is appropriate for each individual.
This has led to some conflict when managers decide that an individual
needs to be moved to assisted living or the nursing facility.
As a state-licensed facility, Meridian is subject to the state law
that mandates regular inspection of all nursing homes by the health
department. Earlier this year, the department cited the Lakewood
Meridian for two violations of state regulations that require
nursing-home residents to be given thirty days' notice of their right
to appeal evictions. Trish Nagel wrote a blistering 39-page response,
claiming the evictions involved residents with such severe conditions
that they posed a potential threat to the health and well-being of
other people in the facility. She went on to accuse the health
department of drawing "a line in the sand that clearly puts the
health department, with its dogma on one side and health-care
facilities, who promise what they deliver and deliver what they
promise in quality patient care, on the other side."
The most recent confrontation between Meridian and the state
ombudsman's office took place this spring. Two local ombudsmen, Julie
Christiansen and Ginger Perini, went to the Lakewood Meridian on March
20. At the front desk, they asked to be directed to the
assisted-living section of the facility. After going to the fourth
floor, they joined several residents playing bingo and struck up a
conversation. "Within five minutes," Perini wrote in a
report, "the general manager, Jan Van Blommesteyn, appeared
and...requested that we go downstairs with him. In front of the
residents he stated that we 'have no authority in this type of
facility and the federal and state statutes do not say that we have
access to this facility.' At this point he said we would need to leave
the facility. We asked if Jan had been given this directive by Trish
Nagel, and he indicated that he had and again asked that we go
downstairs."
The manager then escorted the two women to the front door.
This experience was similar to several confrontations at the
Boulder Meridian in the summer of 1999, when two ombudsmen were
accused of coming to the facility in order to "plant"
complaints and were told to leave.
Last August, the state human services department -- which contracts
with the ombudsman's office -- notified Meridian that it was preparing
to fine the company $2,500 for barring the ombudsmen from entering the
Boulder facility. Trish Nagel accused the ombudsman's office of a
pattern of "harassment and intimidation" and reportedly
placed a call to the governor's office. In October, she met with the
governor's attorney, Troy Eid, Attorney General Ken Salazar and Deputy
Attorney General Barbara McDonnell, and threatened to sue the state
over the proposed fine.
Human Services director Marva Hammons later rescinded the fine,
with a warning that Meridian would be fined if it again barred
ombudsmen from trying to enter one of the company's facilities.
But that was exactly what happened this past March at the Lakewood
Meridian, so in April, the human services department again notified
Meridian that it would be fined $2,500. This time, Trish Nagel sent a
response insisting that state law did not permit the ombudsmen to
enter a facility that doesn't accept government funding; she also
suggested that even if the state law did cover such facilities, it
would be unconstitutional.
Meridian is appealing the fine, and a hearing on the matter will be
set later this month.
Nagel insists there is no good reason for the ombudsmen to be in
its facilities.
"The quality of life and the satisfaction of residents is
readily apparent to anyone who visits a Meridian community,"
Nagel said in her written statement to Westword. "Why
would the ombudsman spend precious time and resources at communities
known for outstanding care when the ombudsman reported over 12,000
resident care complaints at other facilities? The ombudsman's
resources should be spent where they are obviously needed -- at
facilities where the ombudsman has reported complaints about such
serious resident care issues as abuse, neglect, odors, infestations,
pressure sores and other signs of poor resident care and mistreatment.
In wasting time and resources in this way, the ombudsman has lost
sight of the people they are responsible to serve -- the socially and
economically disadvantaged senior citizens who reside in
government-funded facilities."
Others see this strong defense differently.
"The Nagels are a very powerful and influential couple in
Colorado," says Mary Reilly, western regional director of the
American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging. "They
are so anti-regulation. They don't think anybody should have the
ability to come into their operation."
And Trish Nagel, a practicing attorney, hasn't hesitated to use the
courts to take on those who criticize their operation. When Westword
requested information for this story, Ralph Nagel responded with a
letter that pointed out problems in Rocky Mountain News
coverage this spring "which necessitated that newspaper printing
a retraction and taking other action to ameliorate the damage caused
by that coverage. Certainly," he continued, "we want to
avoid a repeat occurrence with the Westword article in the
interest, not only of Meridians, but also in the interest of not
having older adults and their families unfairly frightened by the
publication of reckless or unsubstantiated statements and
accusations."
Jerry Ritchie, a disabled tenants'-rights activist, was sued in
1995 by Meridian in connection with the "Renter's Hotline"
that he operated. At one point, Ritchie had called consumer advocate
Tom Martino and talked on his radio show about complaints he'd
received from former Meridian residents.
That was enough to spur the Nagels into action. They hired private
investigator John Corsentino, who called Ritchie's hotline and
pretended to be a son looking for long-term care for his elderly
mother; he told Ritchie the family was considering the Lakewood
Meridian. (A transcript of the telephone call, which Corsentino
secretly taped, wound up in the court file.)
"The last contracts of theirs that I saw on independent living
take your rights away," Ritchie told Corsentino, adding that he'd
gotten several calls from people who were mad at Meridian, including
one man who said his parents had died and the company was demanding
three months' rent because no advance notice had been given.
"Meridian I wouldn't do business with," Ritchie continued.
"From my point of view, as far as I'm concerned, and any records
and anything that I've seen, and the track record that I know about
Meridian, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."
In the lawsuit, Meridian accused Ritchie of slander, interference
with contractual relations and civil conspiracy. The company asked the
court for an injunction that would prevent Ritchie from
"communicating to any third person any false and inaccurate
statements" about Meridian. Ritchie was served with the lawsuit
papers while hospitalized with pneumonia.
In 1996, a lawyer arrived at Ritchie's small apartment to take a
deposition in the case. She introduced herself as an attorney with
Moye, Giles, O'Keefe, Vermeire & Gorrell, the firm that
represented Meridian. Her name was Trish Nagel ("Nursing a
Grudge," January 7, 1999).
As part of the lawsuit, Meridian subpoenaed several staffers in the
ombudsman's program and even tried to obtain copies of the
confidential complaints against the company that had been filed with
that office.
Ritchie decided not to hire a lawyer to fight the suit and never
showed up in court to defend himself. Because he failed to appear, the
court granted Meridian a default judgment and issued an injunction to
prevent Ritchie from making "false and inaccurate"
statements about the company.
Ritchie died last fall.
Virginia Fraser never expected to become the state ombudsman. But a
class project twenty years ago led her to a new career that soon
became her life's calling.
In the late 1970s, she was working as an assistant professor at
Loretto Heights College in a program for older, non-traditional
students. One of the graduation requirements was that students had to
work on a community project. Fraser contacted a nursing home near the
college and started doing programs there with the students.
About the same time, her elderly mother came down with Alzheimer's.
At the time, there was little understanding of the condition. Fraser
and a colleague wrote a booklet called "Understanding Senility: A
Layperson's Guide" in an effort to help others whose loved ones
were suffering from the disease. After an article about the project
ran in a local newspaper, more than a hundred people contacted her
asking for help. Soon a support group was founded that became the
predecessor to today's local chapter of the Alzheimer's Association.
Fraser was in touch with the director of the Colorado Congress of
Seniors, which had just been awarded a $20,000 federal grant to start
the ombudsman's program. One person would be the ombudsman for
Colorado, and Fraser was offered the job.
"I had no idea what I was doing," she recalls. "It
was me for the whole state."
The first telephone call she received as state ombudsman was from a
panicked RTD driver who was carrying a confused elderly woman. She
recalls: "He said, 'I have this woman on the bus who should be in
a nursing home. What should I do?'"
Over the years, Fraser built up the program with the use of
volunteers and money from both the public and private sectors. The
federal Older Americans Act requires every state to have an ombudsman,
but the office is structured differently from state to state. In
Colorado, the contract to run the ombudsman program has always been
awarded to a local nonprofit, in large part to ensure its independence
from political pressure. Here the state human services department
contracts with the nonprofit Legal Center for People With Disabilities
and Older People to run the program.
State funding for the ombudsman program has been flat for several
years, but the program has been highly successful at obtaining grants
from local foundations to help it continue its work. The Rose
Community Foundation has made an especially large commitment.
Colorado's program is often used as an example for other states.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently recognized
Colorado's ombudsman's office as among the finest in the country, in
particular noting its effective use of volunteers.
"Virginia Fraser has gone beyond what a lot of states
do," says Holder, of the National Coalition for Nursing Home
Reform. "She's been really creative and accomplished a lot."
One of Fraser's more unusual endeavors was to develop a
"residents' rights" bingo game for nursing homes. The game
helps staffers and residents who might be bored listening to a lecture
learn the same information in a fun way. More than 7,000 copies of the
game have been sold to nursing homes all over the country.
Those who work with Fraser say she brought a passion to her work
that inspired them. "She was my mentor; she taught me everything
I know," says Jayla Sanchez Warren, who supervises the ombudsman
program in metro Denver. "The clearest message you get from her
is, 'We're here to help the residents. They're our bosses.' The
ombudsman program in Colorado is what it is because of her. She's
given us a wonderful foundation to build on."
At the same time that Fraser was building up the state ombudsman
program, the Nagels were busy building their health-care empire.
Recently, they've taken their crusade to keep government away from
their business into the heart of the State Capitol.
Ralph and Trish Nagel have opened their checkbooks to Republican
politicians at both the state and national levels. They've given
$800,000 to the party over the past five years and were important
backers of Bill Owens in his run for the governor's office, giving him
$23,000 in the weeks before a new law took effect that limited
campaign contributions to $1,000. They also gave $1 million to Owens's
pet project, the Colorado Institute of Technology.
In addition, the Nagels have contributed to Colorado Concern, a
group that funds political advertising independent of candidates, thus
exempting contributors from limits on donations. These so-called
educational groups are not required to disclose the size or source of
their funding.
Trish Nagel's involvement in the selection of Jane Norton as head
of the state health department struck many people as a conflict of
interest. But Dick Wadhams, the governor's spokesman, says Trish Nagel
has not influenced Owens's attitudes toward nursing homes or the
ombudsman's office. "They have never talked about that," he
says.
Wadhams cites Meridian's current dispute with the state health
department as evidence that the Nagels don't have undue influence over
Owens. "The proof is that the Nagels don't have a good
relationship with Jane Norton," says Wadhams. "That
indicates [their contributions] haven't played into this
situation."
Wadhams also notes that criticism of the state health department's
lax regulation of Colorado nursing homes extends back to the Romer
administration.
The Nagels' political influence was vividly demonstrated during the
last session of the legislature. Representative Kelley Daniel of
Golden introduced a bill that would have limited long-term-care homes
to charging thirty days' rent when a resident has to leave through no
fault of his own. The proposed law was prompted by the same complaints
against Meridian that first came to the attention of the ombudsman's
office in 1993, over a clause then in its leases requiring residents
of independent-living facilities to pay ninety days' rent after
vacating their apartments, even if the vacancy was caused by illness
or death. (The Nagels say they haven't needed to enforce that clause
for several years, because they have a waiting list for apartments.)
The bill attracted little notice in the House and passed easily with
bipartisan support.
That may have been because the Nagels' chief lobbyist, Karen
Reinertson of Hays, Hays & Wilson, had just been appointed by
Owens to head the state agency that approves Medicaid payments to
nursing homes. With Reinertson off the floor, apparently no one was
tracking the bill on behalf of Meridian. Once the Nagels realized the
bill had passed the House, they leapt into action to stop it in the
state Senate.
"When the Nagels heard this had passed -- it flew in under the
radar -- they dispatched every lobbyist from Hays, Hays & Wilson
to the Senate," says Senator Sue Windels of Arvada, who sponsored
the bill there. "They unleashed a huge effort to kill it."
Trish Nagel personally joined her hired hands to lobby senators
against the legislation.
Windels was also sponsoring an important nursing-home reform bill,
Senate Bill 78. The lobbyists told her they would kill SB 78 if she
tried to include the provisions limiting contracts to thirty days, she
says. To save SB 78, Windels made that proposal part of a different
bill.
To appease the Nagels, at one point the House even added a
provision to SB 78 mandating that all investigations of complaints at
private-pay facilities be done by the state health department rather
than the ombudsman's office. But that provision was removed after
legislators realized how costly it would be for the health department
to take on the ombudsmen's role.
"Most of the complaints they handle are quite frivolous --
there's no chicken soup on the menu, and they promised there would
be," says Windels. "It would have cost more than a million
dollars a year for the health department to handle those
complaints."
Windels tried to shepherd Daniel's thirty-day's notice bill through
the Senate. Several other states have laws that place even more severe
restrictions on the amount extended-care facilities can charge
residents who leave, she points out. "We wanted to protect people
who decide 'I don't know how much longer I can live
independently,'" she says. "They know they're moving into a
phase of their lives where they may have to move into a nursing home.
What we were trying to do is protect them from things over which they
have no control: death, and when the nursing home is going to ask
someone to leave."
Windels's bill was defeated on a party-line vote after Democrat Jim
Dyer of Durango joined the Republicans to kill it. Dyer had just been
appointed by Owens to an $87,000-a-year job on the Public Utilities
Commission.
Earlier this month, Meridian announced it was dropping the
ninety-day-notice requirement from its leases and would require only
thirty days' notice on its independent-living contracts.
Nevertheless, Nagel says she still would oppose Daniel's proposal.
"Meridian did not support [the bill] because it would have set a
dangerous precedent in undermining the public's ability to rely upon
contracts in all types of businesses and would have done nothing to
improve the quality of care or life of residents of nursing homes or
personal-care boarding homes," she said in her statement to Westword.
Meridian's reputation for opposing government regulation is
undeserved, according to Nagel: "Meridian has supported
legislation that would increase the quality of care provided to
residents of nursing homes and personal care boarding homes. This
year, Meridian supported legislation to increase the role of the
health department in investigating complaints in nursing homes. In the
past, Meridian opposed legislation that would have eliminated
unannounced annual inspections by the health department."
All of this skirmishing over one legislative proposal stands in
sharp contrast to Colorado's failed effort to regulate nursing homes.
For years, Colorado has had one of the worst records in the country
for inspecting nursing homes and citing them for poor care
("Dying for Dollars," October 15, 1998). Several
class-action lawsuits have exposed shocking conditions at area
facilities and highlighted the state's refusal to crack down on the
worst of them. And recently, workers at the state health department
division that monitors nursing homes have become accustomed to regular
office visits from FBI agents.
The most stunning charges involved the privately owned O'Hara
Regional Center for Rehabilitation in Denver. That center, which cared
for people with severe disabilities, was sued in 1999 by former
patients and their families who alleged that O'Hara's poor care had
led to the deaths of several people from abuse and neglect. The
plaintiffs provided a horrifying list of complaints, including those
of helpless people being allowed to fester in their own waste,
developing such severe bedsores that they required surgery. The
lawsuit included stories of patients going unfed for days, not being
bathed for months, and getting blood poisoning from untreated
infections. Several staff members gave depositions in which they
verified the accounts of horrible care. That lawsuit was eventually
settled for $37 million.
The state's failure to close O'Hara or force it to change left many
observers incredulous, but it was part of a pattern in which Colorado
regulators refused to fully enforce laws meant to protect nursing-home
residents from abuse. It was that sorry record that brought the FBI
into the offices of the state health department last fall. While no
charges have been filed, dozens of employees have been interviewed in
a division said to be in disarray. The FBI probe was likely prompted
by the O'Hara scandal. Several officials in other states have been
arrested and accused of taking bribes from nursing homes they were
supposed to be regulating.
For many, the O'Hara situation highlighted how crucial it is for
the state to have a forceful advocate for seniors in the ombudsman's
office.
"Having a strong and autonomous ombudsman program is really
important," says Enid Cox, director of the Institute of
Gerontology at the University of Denver. "There are more families
facing the issue of how to provide for elders in need of care. The
point of the ombudsman program is that it can get into all facilities
and be a voice for the residents. Not having that would be a huge loss
to all of us concerned about quality of care."
Another vital part of the equation is keeping the ombudsman program
independent from political pressures, say those involved in elder
care.
"There's all these players in nursing homes, but the
ombudsman's office is the only one that's truly independent,"
says Pinon Management's Jerebker. "Advocacy needs to be
independent; it should not have an agenda. If it's dictated by
government or politics, then it really isn't advocacy anymore."
Cox says Virginia Fraser's resignation is a blow to seniors all
over the state.
"It's heartbreaking that someone who's had such an excellent
long-term career would need to terminate their position because she
felt she couldn't do her job," Cox says.
The state is currently negotiating a new ombudsman's program
contract with the Legal Center for People With Disabilities and Older
People. Since Fraser's resignation, the state reportedly has backed
off on some of its previous demands that the ombudsman be restricted
from talking to the public.
Liz McDonough, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Human
Services, claims the department's position on the ombudsman's office
has been misrepresented. She says her department simply wants to
"coordinate" any public comments the ombudsman makes.
"We wanted to have a knowledge of what was being said to the
media or what was being presented to the legislature," says
McDonough. "If it's an issue of some controversy, we'd prefer
they get together with us and we discuss how it would be responded to.
This was not about trying to change the role of the ombudsman. It was
about closer coordination with the human services department."
To Fraser, "coordination" sounds more like censorship.
Anyone who has read the ombudsman's annual report knows Fraser is
always careful to balance the complaints of residents with the
perspective of nursing-home managers. Rabble-rousing is not what she's
about, but she feels strongly that someone has to be there to defend
elderly people when they are most vulnerable.
"The nursing homes have a really tough job," says Fraser.
"Short staffing is at the root of a lot of the care problems.
Many of the corporations [that own nursing homes] are still so
bottom-line-oriented, they don't provide the care they should."
While Fraser is no longer running the ombudsman program, she still
serves as a volunteer ombudsman at Cherrelyn. She started doing this
before she resigned: In the midst of the political attacks on her
office, she wanted to remind herself of just how important the
ombudsman's work was.
"I felt like I wanted to get back to the basics," says
Fraser. "I was feeling like I was getting out of touch with the
nursing-home residents by not being there."
Cherrelyn is one of the biggest homes in Colorado, with 200
residents. Its managers pride themselves on cooperating with the
ombudsman's office, which they view as a useful intermediary between
residents' families and the facility. In a recent meeting, Fraser
talked with the staff about doing a "residents' rights"
quilt and bringing in a local quilting group to help. The managers
told Fraser about a recent field trip to a Rockies game that became
eventful when their bus broke down and they had to be rescued by RTD.
At the request of residents, plans are also being made to buy a
frozen-yogurt machine and new patio furniture.
Making the rounds, Fraser walked through Cherrelyn's dining room.
She noted approvingly that the nursing aides were chatting with
several disabled people as they helped them eat lunch.
"It's important to see how people are being tended to when
they're eating," says Fraser. "Are they just shoving food in
people's mouths, or are they talking to them as they feed them?"
Fraser likes Cherrelyn's current administrator and clearly feels
the staff is doing a good job. She's been around long enough to
remember years when things weren't going so well at Cherrelyn.
"At one time we had a lot of problems here," she says.
Eventually, Fraser plans to try and talk with every person who
lives at the home.
"I'm going to try to go there once a week," she says.
"I hope to visit with every new resident as they come in. It's a
way of getting back in touch with what the local ombudsmen are
doing."
{ http://www.westword.com/issues/2001-07-19/feature2.html/page1.html
}
