Ohio’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program has about 200 volunteers who regularly visit long-term care facilities, including nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, and advocate for the residents. The program’s budget is $1,846,979 for 2020 and $3,112,901 for 2021, a significant jump from the $477,877 in state funds for 2018-19.
Laura Hicks lovingly looked at Doris Kazee and listened attentively as she talked about her former career as a nurse as machines beeped in the background.
Kazee, 78, of Pataskala, was getting ready to be discharged from the Laurels of Walden Park, a nursing and rehabilitation center on the Northeast Side, and Hicks was making her weekly visits as a volunteer ombudsman.
“The ombudsman program helps people,” Hicks explained to Kazee. “We advocate for people who live in facilities in case there are problems or things they are confused about.”
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Ohio’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program has about 200 volunteers statewide who regularly visit long-term care facilities, including nursing homes and assisted-living facilities.
The volunteers address a variety of quality-of-life issues, including quality of care, food complaints and scheduling conflicts.
“There’s people my age and not all of them are able to solve problems in situations that come up, so to have someone that can help them with those decisions is excellent,” Kazee said.
The two-year state operating budget for 2020-21 includes additional funds to expand the ombudsman’s program to increase the number and frequency of visits to residents. The program is earmarked to receive $1,846,979 in 2020 and $3,112,901 in 2021, a significant jump from the $477,877 in state funds the program received in the 2018-19 two-year budget.
As part of the increased funding, the program will hire a full-time volunteer coordinator for each of the 12 regional offices, said Beverly Laubert, the state’s long-term care ombudsman at the Ohio Department of Aging.
“It’s very likely that if there wasn’t an ombudsman program, senior citizens wouldn’t know they have a set of rights, and a lot of problems would go unaddressed,” said Amity Overall-Laib, the director of the National Long-Term Care Ombudsman Resource Center in Washington, D.C., an online resource.
Every state is required to have an ombudsman program under the federal Older Americans Act, as is the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and Guam.
The ombudsman program is about advocating and empowering the residents, and it needs a lot of volunteers, Laubert said.
“We’re really an alternative way for people to get their problems solved,” she said.
If someone is interested in becoming a volunteer ombudsman, they can apply online through the Ohio Department of Aging’s website. The application will be sent to the correct regional ombudsman program, and the volunteers go through free certification training.
When a resident brings a complaint to their attention, the volunteer ombudsmen have to get the resident’s consent to address a complaint with the facility.
Hicks, 67, of Grove City, has discovered people in nursing homes often don’t speak up.
“They want to not be a bother,” she said. “They are typically afraid that if they do speak up they won’t receive quality care.”
Issues with the food is one of the biggest complaints she hears from people.
“They don’t get what they want or they get food that they don’t want,” Hicks said. “Some people when they get older also don’t want as much food, so they get overwhelmed by how much food is on their tray.”
When it comes to the food issues, the resident can work with the dietitian.
Food issues are something Hicks is familiar with. Before she was a volunteer ombudsman, she was a dietary manager at Heartland Victorian Village, a skilled nursing facility. She has been volunteering at the Laurels of Walden Park every week for 12 years.
“People always say it’s a great success story when people can leave, but I think it’s almost as successful to have someone be happy here,” she said.
Source: The Columbus Dispatch