To: President Donald Trump, The North Carolina State House, The North Carolina State Senate, Governor Roy Cooper, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
Require Registered Nurses in Assisted Living/Memory Care Facilities in NC
To require Registered Nurses in all Assisted Living/Memory Care Facilities in NC and all 50 state in the U.S. and to have federal overview of these facilities.
Why is this important?
The State of NC and 45 other states do not require registered nurses (RN's) to be employed and physically present everyday in Assisted Living/Memory Care facilities. State law governs these facilities and is seriously lacking. The residents in the memory care units have dementia/alzheimers which is an "illness" of the brain, but their illness is not afforded the necessary higher level of care provided by RN's that skilled nursing facilities are given.
In many assisted living/memory care facilities, the highest level of medical training is a "med-tech," which requires only five months of training with a high school education. These "med-techs" dispense medications including NARCOTICS. The daily running of the memory care unit is often overseen by a med-tech without oversight of an RN or a doctor. The residents are primarily elderly with numerous health problems including heart and kidney illness, hypertension, diabetes, etc. in addition to memory impairment. They often cannot tell you what is wrong. They need and deserve the highly trained eye of an RN.
I witnessed daily calls for paramedics to take residents who had fallen to the ER: diagnosis - dehydration. That's often preventable with the oversight of an RN. And the cost to Medicare - staggering. Charges for ambulance trips to and from ER and facility, use of ER, expensive diagnostic tests, physician diagnosis, sometimes sutures or surgery to repair broken bones, and rehabilitation, in addition to pain and suffering, confusion and fear of these helpless people.
Skilled nursing facilities, on the other hand, are governed by the state and the federal government which mandates registered nurses in every skilled nursing facility on a daily basis. The residents in skilled nursing have illnesses too but their illnesses are given a higher priority than our loved ones with numerous illnesses and memory impairment. This is an injustice to these innocent human beings who have no voice. Please sign our petition.
In many assisted living/memory care facilities, the highest level of medical training is a "med-tech," which requires only five months of training with a high school education. These "med-techs" dispense medications including NARCOTICS. The daily running of the memory care unit is often overseen by a med-tech without oversight of an RN or a doctor. The residents are primarily elderly with numerous health problems including heart and kidney illness, hypertension, diabetes, etc. in addition to memory impairment. They often cannot tell you what is wrong. They need and deserve the highly trained eye of an RN.
I witnessed daily calls for paramedics to take residents who had fallen to the ER: diagnosis - dehydration. That's often preventable with the oversight of an RN. And the cost to Medicare - staggering. Charges for ambulance trips to and from ER and facility, use of ER, expensive diagnostic tests, physician diagnosis, sometimes sutures or surgery to repair broken bones, and rehabilitation, in addition to pain and suffering, confusion and fear of these helpless people.
Skilled nursing facilities, on the other hand, are governed by the state and the federal government which mandates registered nurses in every skilled nursing facility on a daily basis. The residents in skilled nursing have illnesses too but their illnesses are given a higher priority than our loved ones with numerous illnesses and memory impairment. This is an injustice to these innocent human beings who have no voice. Please sign our petition.