Nursing homes in the area are desperately in need of more direct and constant monitoring by the county and by the state of Oregon. Nursing homes charge approximately $6,696.00 per month for basic care, if your loved one needs oxygen or depends of course that is extra. In fact everything they do towards your loved ones can comes at a fairly good charge to your pocket book. These facility's are always in violation with the state for being short staffed, sometimes the Cna's work one Cna per 21-22 patients this happened in a local facility in St. Helens, The CNA's have reported this to the state along with many other family's. What happens to the facility after a long investigation? They may or may not get a fine of $500.00- $1,500.000 big deal, considering what they charge. More times than not the facility worked short staffed.
Often times the state does nothing, the CNA's get tired of reporting these incidents because more times than not nothing gets done and they get reprimanded for being caring to residents that can not stand up for their selves. CNA's cannot answer a family members question whether they are short staffed or not, that question must be asked of the supervisor where they can give an incorrect answer to the family.

The facility did not follow doctor discharge orders; at times the house doctor prescribes incorrect medication and over doses in medication resulting in ambulance rides to a Portland hospital where coherent physicians can handle the problems. The facility also sent the wrong file with the patient. The list goes on and on.

These facilities are run by corporations from back east, they are not in the business other than too make a profit and believe me they do make a profit, they cut corners where ever they can to save a dime no matter if it requires them to purchase the cheapest grade of food that they can purchase.
If it means they work the staff so short handed that your loved one soils themselves because it takes 30 minutes for some one to come help them to the toilet. So what, if the resident looses their dignity, as long as the care facility saves $$ by not supplying the mandatory number of CNA's at all three shifts. The turn over rate at care facility's are horrible, who can blame these people for going elsewhere, the pressure to take care of someone and have it compounded by working short handed is too stressful. It is not the caregivers that are the problem it is the greedy corporation.

I believe these problems go on in many of our nursing homes with out being addressed I think we owe our elderly more than allowing one single person to have to loose their dignity, or eat low-grade food, or have poor quality of medical care because these corporations are not held accountable. I think we all should look in the mirror and see if you could live with yourself knowing what goes on in some of these nursing homes, it does not mean we should sit idly by and let it continue. We need to speak out against poor care for our elderly, because some day we will be one of the elderly.