v., or just the presence of someone conscious. I had no answers. We had requested a room change, but my grandmother wanted it just so. She wanted to blame "allergies" in the room as not to offend her old roommate. She was eventually moved, but this time her new roommate did not even open her curtain in between the beds. .
The personnel that worked at this particular nursing home were not the friendliest either. I had read and heard from friends nothing but good things about it when my family was looking for a possible place. The nurses seemed to be annoyed by having to do their job. Not all of them, but on the whole I would say that very few of the nurses who had contact with my grandmother spent any time with her. They would come in and change the linen, wash her, etc and be gone. I guess that I/she was hoping they would sit and chat, but in these hard economic times it seems that the status quo is to assign as much work as possible out of employees. The end result, in my opinion, is that the workload for nurses (as an example) is so great they don't have time for the human interaction that is vital in aftercare programs.
"Quit washing the kitchen, it smells so strong of cleaner!" I would hear her say.
"I"m not cleaning; it's the same nursing home "smell" that you complain about everyday. I am sorry I can't light a candle in here but the oxygen lines and the rules- etc This was yet another letdown for her that I had no answer for.
Just about on every occasion when I would visit her I would stop at the nurses station. I would always ask the same questions about the "woman" in 13A. They would look at some charts; mumble that all looks well, and that I shouldn't worry. Not one time did they have anything close to the answers I had hoped for. Something non-medical. They could never tell me her mental state (sad, happy, etc ), which makes sense because they had never once taken the time to know her in a non-nurse-patient environment.