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  The Nation's #1 Independent Veterans Web Site Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage VA NEWS FLASH from Larry Scott at VA Watchdog dot Org -- 06-14-2008 |
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The Nation's #1 Independent Veterans Web Site Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage VA NEWS FLASH from Larry Scott at VA Watchdog dot Org -- 06-14-2008 |
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Vet's wife accused of "disruptive behavior" after she complains about quality of care.
Story here...
http://prescottdailycourier.com/ma Story below:
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VA restricts visits of 83-year-old Prescott Valley womanBy T.M. Shultz, The Daily Courier
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Anne says that in late April as she was returning
to the VA after leaving to have lunch herself, VA police stopped her and
told her that she could not enter the building. Anne says the officer told
her that a staff member complained that they had overheard her telling a
friend that day that she was going to shoot everyone there.
Asked if she had ever - even in jest - said such a thing, Anne said, "As
God is my judge, no."
Anne added that the friend who was with her when she was supposed to have
talked about shooting everyone told both the VA police and the VA director
that Anne had said no such thing to her.
The friend, who said she did not want to be named in an article about the
case, confirmed for The Daily Courier that Anne had said nothing about
shooting anyone while she was with her.
Anne said her friend was the only one who came to see Ang that day, so it
couldn't have been another friend.
In order to see her husband now, Anne - who has a bad hip and walks with a
slight limp - must first go to the VA police building and sign in, then
take the sign-in card to the nurses' station on the first floor of the
extended care wing where her husband lives. After she shows the card to a
nurse there, she can visit her husband for one hour.
Officials there strictly enforce the time limit, as The Daily Courier
learned one day recently when a reporter accompanied Anne on her lunchtime
visit to feed her husband.
After Anne had shown her pass to a nurse at the desk near her husband's
room and had started walking down the hall, another nurse came running
after her demanding to see her papers.
"I already showed them," Anne said.
"Well, you're early," the nurse said.
It was five minutes to noon.
According to an April 29 letter to Anne from VA Director Susan Angell that
the Courier obtained, Anne can see her husband only on
Mondays,
Wednesdays and Fridays from noon until 1 p.m. The restriction is for at
least three months, but will not automatically expire, the letter says.
Anne will have to apply on or after July 28 to Geriatric Extended Care
Service Line Manager Robin Larson to have her restriction "reviewed."
Anne calls the VA's restriction cruel. "I know this separation is
injurious to (Ang)," she said. "I call it the 'act of cruelty.'"
She said the VA restricted her visiting hours after she made numerous
complaints about a staff member wearing the same pair of gloves as he went
into and out of several patient rooms and about patients who called for
help and were ignored by a particular staff member.
In addition, Anne said, she also complained about the staff's unsanitary
handling of her husband's catheter.
When the unsanitary conditions kept occurring, Anne said she told Larson
that she would report the conditions she had witnessed to the Joint
Commission, which is scheduled to conduct a surprise inspection of the
Prescott VA by the end of the year. The Joint Commission is the agency
that accredits all VA centers.
On June 2, Larson declined to comment about Anne's charges and referred
all questions to Cimorelli.
In an e-mail, Cimorelli said, "We would be happy to provide information
related to the reasons we took the actions we did."
Cimorelli directed The Daily Courier to put its request in writing to
Angell, stating, "We have lots of information to substantiate our
position."
After Angell received the Courier's June 2 request, Cimorelli said the VA
didn't have enough time to gather the information and also said some of it
wasn't releasable. The Courier agreed to wait until Friday for whatever
information was releasable.
On Friday, Cimorelli said the VA would not comment on the Famalaro case
directly, except to say that the VA restricts visitation "only in the most
serious cases after other remedies have been exhausted."
He declined to say what the "other remedies" were.
Anne also says that a friend of the Famalaro family - who is like family
to her husband and who has been feeding Ang his meals for the past month
while Anne has been restricted - learned earlier this week from VA
officials that she can no longer feed Ang.
Asked about that, Cimorelli said, "Only individuals who have been
specifically trained may feed patients." He declined to comment further
and did not answer the issue of why the woman had been allowed to feed Ang
for the past month or why other friends of the family had been allowed to
feed Ang without interference after Anne's visits were restricted.
The friend, who asked that her name not be used said, "I was waiting for
him at his regular table (when) they kind of abruptly wheeled him over to
the feeding table."
The feeding table is where the nurses place patients for staff assistance
who cannot easily feed themselves and have no one to help them.
"One of the dining staff said, 'We don't know what's going on, but we've
been instructed to feed Ang last,'" the friend said. "(Ang) was confused
about why he was not sitting at his regular spot."
Anne said her husband "dreads" the feeding table.
The friend said that while she has never witnessed bad care at the VA,
she's confused about why they won't let her continue feeding Ang. She said
she has American Heart Association certification in CPR and first aid.
"Even the VA says they like family there so the veterans will not feel
like they're forgotten," she said, adding that she has an especially good
relationship with Ang.
"I found ways to make him laugh ... and assist him in eating that was
encouraging to his self-esteem and his will to live," the friend said.
Dr. Mitchell Gelber, a Prescott psychologist who works with a number of
Yavapai County's skilled nursing facilities - while not commenting
directly on Anne's case - said that, in general, "Anytime you change a
relationship status dramatically, there's going to be stress."
He said that so long as someone is taking care of the person's needs, they
could eventually feel better about the loss of a caregiver.
But he said, "Familiarity is important to people with any kind of medical
or psychological problems. Changes are stressful and the more cognitively
impaired, the more confusion there is and the more difficult these
transitions are."
The couple's niece says she thinks the VA would like nothing more than to
"get rid of" Ang so officials there won't have to deal with Anne any more.
"My aunt is his reason to live and he looks forward to her daily visits,"
said niece Mary Ann Wells, a high school teacher in Somerville, Mass. "She
gives him all her attention and love, and he thrives on it. (Now) he does
not know what's happening or why."
Two registered nurses currently employed at the extended care facility and
one former nurse there say VA officials are isolating the frail World War
II veteran from the two people he loves and trusts in retaliation to
Anne's complaints.
The nurses asked that their names not be used because they are either
looking for work elsewhere or fear retaliation.
The nurses say they, too, have complained to the extended care
administration about some of the same things Anne has.
"They're looking to get rid of people who complain," one nurse said.
She and the other nurses agreed that Anne can be difficult to deal with
because she is at the facility all of the time and watches over her
husband vigilantly.
"But she has a right to be his advocate," the nurse said. "She's intense
and a bit overzealous, but I never heard her raise her voice."
One of the women, a former nurse at the facility, recently sent a
certified letter to Sen. John McCain describing Ang's treatment as
"malicious."
She provided The Daily Courier with a copy of the letter.
"For 10 years this veteran's wife has spent six to eight hours every day
of the week scrupulously monitoring his condition and care such that he
has never even had a bedsore...," the letter states. "This 8(3)-year-old,
strong-willed woman was recently escorted off the premises by the police
and punished with limited visitation privileges because of contrived
accusations and retaliation for her reporting of unsafe conditions and
even abuse of the veteran patients," the nurse went on to say in the
letter.
All three nurses - who have a combined total of more than 65 years nursing
experience - say that "stories" about Anne swirl through the extended care
facility.
Anne, they say, is never referred to at the VA without some type of
reference to her son, who was convicted of murdering a woman years ago.
"They're making stories up that she was involved in that murder," one of
the nurses said.
"The reference is always, 'Anne Famalaro, the one whose son killed
someone,'" another nurse said. She said staff members often pass around
among themselves a book written about the murder.
Asked if she would ever be afraid of Anne, the nurse said, "Never, never,
never."
The two nurses currently working at the facility said that after the
"incident" with Anne happened, one of the charge nurses called staff
together and reminded them that Famalaro was the woman whose son had
murdered someone.
"Then the nurse went on to say, 'There was an incident yesterday where she
threatened to bring a gun and start shooting everybody.' This is how we
were told," the nurse said.
"Then staff was told to go to the parking lot in pairs because (Anne)
might be lurking in the parking lot."
The second nurse said VA officials told her the same thing: "They said she
had a gun and was going to come back and shoot everybody in the building."
Both nurses said they thought it was "silly."
Prescott City Councilman Bob Luzius says he's known Anne for a number of
years and could never imagine her hurting anyone.
"She's been very, very instrumental in keeping (Ang) alive," Luzius said.
"I've seen her out there taking care of him, bringing things to the
nurses' attention. She's very forceful. I would definitely say she's the
reason (he's still alive.)"
Today, Anne said, is Ang's 92nd birthday. Because of the VA restrictions,
she said, she will not be able to see her husband.
Contact the reporter at
tshultz@prescottaz.com
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posted by Larry
Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
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