ACLU Takes On Nursing Homes

McKnight's has published an excellent and illuminating editorial regarding how some seniors who need institutional care are routinely frustrated in seeking and obtaining care by the very institutions themselves.  The editorial explains, using a specific example, how the ACLU has finally involved itself in skilled nursing home placement decisions or refusals.  The editorial reads: 

As in all cases involving a resident who wasn't accepted at a nursing home, each side has a different take on what happened.

According to the Lincoln Star-Journal, Nebraska resident Courtney Shelor says her father wasn't accepted at six nursing homes because he had HIV. A statement from the ACLU followed this week, via a letter to the homes in question reminding them of state and federal law.If you missed the basic tenants around the Americans with Disabilities Act (or Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973), it's here.  

Accepting a person with a terminal illness into your nursing home also would hopefully be found within your own moral code.While it was 68 miles away from his family, Shelor was finally accepted at Golden Living Center in Broken Bow. I suspect that administrator or admissions director was simply doing her job, but let me say publicly: Good for you for making his last days good ones. Shelor writes that this facility “welcomed us with open arms!” While the center had never had anyone with HIV, it was able to make it work, including helping the elder Shelor be approved for Medicaid.You can read the rest of the younger Shelor's letter here, in which she talks about her father being her hero. He died at the end of July.

Go here to read the rest of the article.