Nursing Home Care Cost Verses Care

As in most of my articles, I write from experience in hopes that someone will learn from mine. My father was in an nursing home two years before passing and I learned alot about the nursing home system and a wise doctor and I became friends. My father had vein bypass surgery and his doctor wanted to release him back to the nursing home. My fathers foot did not look good so I told his surgeon to sign in his chart he knew everything was ok to release him. I told the doctor I wanted him fully reliable. That is when the doctor and I became friends. He refused to have my father put in a van and made personal trips to the nursing home to see him when he was released, but most of all, I will never forget him telling me don't worry about the cost of a nursing home. It is the people they hire. I learned that after when I found my father was being physically and verbally abused. He was yelled at threated, and when a bandage was removed off his foot, bone was pertruding from two of his toes. I had a camera in my car, ran and wrote my fathers name and date on the paper and took photos. I ran to the closest place I could get the pics made and in less that an hour I found myself with a Stockton, CA police officer looking at the photo and he immediately radioed for an ambulance. When the officer went to go in the nursing home he was stopped and not let in. It was within ten minutes I was walking aside my father as paramedics were taking him to the hospital. As I stayed with my father at the hospital, I don't think I ever saw so many doctors come in and see the elder abuse the nursing home did to my father. When this happened it hurt everyone. You think you have your love one in a place that cares, but in reality, it is a job like any other. My father was moved to another nursing home closer to my home and mom was forced to sell her home and move into an adult senior apartment complex to be closer to him. Due to dads experience in the nursing home, two and one half months after dads passing, mom was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. Her wishes were to pass away in her apartment. I made sure I was with her as she wanted hospice too. After my fathers horible experience the cost of a nursing home does not make any difference, it is the quality of care, the people who are hired to work there.