LETTERS

Raise the bar on resident care

Posted 2/8/22

To the Editor, As a social service clinician on the geriatric unit at Butler Hospital, it is both disheartening and infuriating to watch Governor McKee delay the Nursing Home Staffing and Quality Care Act, legislation he already signed

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LETTERS

Raise the bar on resident care

Posted

To the Editor,

As a social service clinician on the geriatric unit at Butler Hospital, it is both disheartening and infuriating to watch Governor McKee delay the Nursing Home Staffing and Quality Care Act, legislation he already signed into law last year.

At Butler, many of our patients who have complex mental healthcare needs rely on long term care to provide continued support. But in my 27 years, I have witnessed repeatedly local nursing homes turn away our patients with short staffing being one of the key reasons.

For years, I have been trying to help educate our local nursing homes that our patients at Butler Hospital are their patients too. Too often there is a revolving door of care between our facilities as we work hard to stabilize a patient who then must wait until

there is enough staff to admit them back to their nursing home. And once they return, lack of staffing can cause that patient to destabilize, getting sicker by the day, until they have to return to Butler. This back and forth cycle of care is inhumane and it is a disservice to our patients.

Our nursing home residents are in the final stages of their lives and they deserve compassionate, quality care. This is an issue that impacts all of us: we will all need long term care and may end up in a nursing home someday. Governor McKee must do right by Rhode Island residents and allow The Nursing Home Staffing and Quality Care Act to move forward.

Chris Faria

Cranston

resident care

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