Iowa is known as a state of friendly, caring people. Well, it used to be. That was before holding companies decided to start taking over nursing homes, assisted living facilities, hospitals and walk in clinics. Lately, these facilities are coming under more intense scrutiny as families are complaining about loved ones being subjected to abuse, neglect and even murder. Yes, you read that right. One man was allowed to become dehydrated to such an extent that he lost the equivalent of seven liters of fluid. He died shortly after that discovery. That was at a center in Northern Iowa.

At a facility where my daughter did her nursing clinicals, she dressed a woman’s wound on her arm, then as she always does, signed her name and the date on the dressing. When she returned a month later, the same dressing was still on her arm. She called the EMT’s and the woman’s son to get there ASAP. In the meantime, the director of the facility tried to take the dressing away from my daughter. A serious mistake. The son arrived about the same time the EMT’s got there. She gave the dressing, now in a bag, to him and told him what she had seen and for him to keep it safe. He might need it. His mother was sent to the University of Iowa hospital, where her arm was amputated. She died not long after. That cost the facility 2 mil. Of course, the director was fired, right? Nope. Not until she came in drunk one night to cover for someone who hadn’t shown up. Later, they hired her back. She was fired again for unknown causes this time, and once again, they hired her back. As of this writing, she is still employed there. She must have one hell of a good line of BS. And, that is some revolving door.

At a facility where my daughter-in-law worked previously, she witnessed one of the male CNA’s pick up a lady who had tried to get out of bed on her own, and fell, he slammed her back in bed and shouted at her to stay there! He was fired, correct? No, he actually, not long after, received an award and a glowing letter of praise when he went to work at another facility. His son works with him and is just as abusive. Health care facilities need male CNAs and nurses. But not of this quality.

At a nursing home, a little farther north, There were charges of abuse by staff and at least two people died of sepsis. At around the same time, I found out that hospitals were sending people home septic. I know that first hand because our local hospital sent me home septic twice and it was listed on both discharge forms. Unfortunately for them, I didn’t die, and my family wouldn’t shrug it off as some families have when the patient died. The hospital in a city just north of us, also sent a man home septic. He died and his family is suing the hospital and everyone involved for 7 mil. At my local hospital where I was sent home septic, I discovered that there were six others also septic, sent home to die, apparently. This is becoming scary. Anyone over the age of 60 needs a patient advocate at all times.

How do these companies like Unity Point, Aspire and any other voracious holding companies, expect to make a good profit if they aren’t going to provide quality care? Especially when they have to pay off wrongful death claims. That doesn’t make sense to me just on a financial level, never mind humanitarian care. I read this morning, that another assisted living facility in Northern Iowa just came under scrutiny for abuse charges. Some of these places have people working as CNA’s who aren’t trained or certified. The response from the director? “We just don’t have the time to do a background check on everyone we hire.” I’m calling bullshit on that excuse. As a landlady, I have run many background checks. It really isn’t that difficult or time consuming. But it needs to be done before someone is hired and put in charge of our most vulnerable citizens. And if these directors don’t have the time to spare from sitting around and polishing their fake nails, maybe they need to find other work. Somewhere that people’s health and lives aren’t dependent on them.

Is this just Iowa? Hardly, when my daughter worked at a privately owned assisted living facility in Western Illinois during the COVID-19 pandemic, the local hospital sent several COVID-19 positive people into the general population, instead of quarantining them to a separate wing. They lost 15 people, a nurse and a administration person. Another massive lawsuit. After that, they decided to set aside a separate wing for just COVID patients. My daughter left there and went to a privately run home health facility, closer to home. One of the holding companies bought them out, and proceeded to cut services. She and my stepdaughter both walked out. My stepdaughter, also a nurse, works at home coding. And my daughter went to work for the county health department.

I recently read of another case in a Northeastern Iowa nursing home. Again, physical and mental abuse. Again, no one fired. I know of a woman in Missouri who has worked for many years in Missouri and Iowa, as a CNA. She not only has never been trained, tested and certified as a CNA at any number of facilities, she also doesn’t have a high school diploma or GED, which all of these companies require. Whenever she gets hired, she lies to them. They don’t bother checking her background. Then she saves up enough money to keep her and her boyfriend in drugs for a few months before hiring on somewhere else. I keep waiting for her to be fired from one of these facilities or arrested for the drugs by law enforcement. Not so far and I’ve been watching this merry-go-round for sixteen years. She has never had abuse charges against her as far as I could find out. Still, how many out there are in similar circumstances, that are being abusive to the people they are being paid to care for? What is going on?

I was already only too familiar with holding companies and how they operate. While driving a truck for a local factory, Textron sold us to a holding company out of Luxembourg. They nosed through all five plants owned by the company and everything that wasn’t nailed down was taken to one of the larger warehouses and sold in a ‘red tag sale’. Then they sold us to a competitor, who used us as a tax write off for five years. Then that CEO closed the doors. That is what is happening to health care facilities on a larger scale. The main difference I can see between closing factories and health care facilities is, one is killing jobs. The other is killing people.

When I left the factory and went to college, I did this kind of work part time. I received rigorous training as a CNA. Plus my associates degree in chemical dependency and family counseling on top of earlier substance abuse training at Highland Center in St. Louis, was a real plus for dealing with seniors, many who had various addictions, thanks to our Allopathic Medical System. The company I worked for had monthly training sessions for a variety of possible problems in dealing with our growing senior population. It really isn’t difficult to train, do a background check on them and retain them by paying a living wage. And before someone says, “Why didn’t you turn these agencies or these CNAs in? It wasn’t my job to rat out people who weren’t well qualified to do this work, yet some were as proficient as many with college degrees. As for the agencies, I have the ‘Medicare/Medicaid Hot line. Whoever was in charge at that time, called our director and warned her she was coming in for an inspection. So, that did a lot of good. California, Chicago, and NYC, I’ve read about, I don’t know if it is systemic in all states. But, I hope, if RFK can survive the Senate gauntlet, he will at least be able to investigate these charges. Our seniors deserve to be treated with respect.