One winter I found myself in need of a job and since jobs were scarce I took a job in a nursing home for the aged as a cook. I reasoned I would be able to do this job with too much contact with the poor old people. I was wrong.
The head cook was always cutting corners in the food budget, for instance she told me to mix sweet potatoes with iris potato flake because sweet potatoes were costly. I knew about food values and I realized the sweet potatoes were on the menu to give the people vitamin A.
This made me very angry but since I was a lowly cook I didn't dare complain. One day the nursing home director came by for a chat and ask me how I liked my job. I told her I was learning a lot from the head cook. I said did you know you can add Irish potato flakes to sweat potatoes and it's much cheaper. The woman stood and looked at me for a moment and then explained that the sweet potato was a source of vitamin A and that was the reason it was on the menu. Oh, I said I didn't realize that. Soon I was told no more Irish potato flakes in the sweet potatoes. In case you don't realize it I am very mean and underhanded.
The patients that were hard to handle were restrained in a chair which is against the law now and probably was then.
There was Hershel, a man who wore overall and a tee shirt, nothing under the overalls. Then there was Wilma a woman who liked sex. Wilma would stroll by and give Hershel the come here look and Hershel would start wiggling and soon there would go Hershel after Wilma dressed in his birthday suit. They learned if Hershel was let loose free to roam Wilma and Hershel spent a lot of time in Wilma's room and everyone didn't have to see Hershel stark necked.
This worked until Hershel's wife found out about Hershel's new play mate. She raised a fuss and Hershel went back into the chair tied. Probably his wife put him in the home because Hershel was very active and she didn't like his attention but I could never understand why she objected to Wilma because she did like his actions.
I stays with this job until spring and left as soon as I could find other work. The treatment of the old people in this country in nursing homes is a national disgrace. I know that families many times can not cope with many of the inflections of our older family members but I hope I die before I reach that stage.
Some people were able to adjust to this life and usual it was women who had work in the public as adults and were still mental sound.
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3 comments:
uhhh, I remember working in one for a few months when Missy was just a baby...The cook there drank all of the time...she kept a bottle stashed under the sink...
I have a chart aunt thelma gave me that shows the healthiest foods in the center and as you move out in the circle the foods get more unhealthy. Aunt Thelma gave it to me in the early 1980s. It is a very good tool even today. I may scan it in and post it for you all to see.
We have a dear 89 year old friend whose stepson put him in a nursing home after the old fellow fell out of bed twice. He shares a room about 12 X 15 in size. His room mate doesn't speak but he is constantly into our friend's things.
Our friend wanted to change his power of attorney. He was told he would have to put that in writing. He worked awhile on that and finally got it done. Then they sent him to an out of town hospital to be mentally evaluated.
A week later he was back and had them call me. He said they had taken his phone away and prohibited his best friend, a woman, from visiting him. He wanted me to fix that problem.
I talked to the administrator and told her that if he was denied his friend, they would have lots of problems with him.
The next day, she had her visiting privileges back.
I told my kids...the one that puts me in such a place, will be cut out of my will.
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