Respect for Older Pennsylvanians

By Billy McCue

My campaign is focused around the long suffering of older Pennsylvanians, like my mother. She died prematurely from injuries suffered due to neglect by the staff of a Pennsylvania assisted living facility.

When my mother died in 2008, it was largely due to poor treatment she received at her assisted living facility. The facility had a good reputation, clean living conditions, and yet below the surface, problems festered that killed my mom years before she would have otherwise died.

I visited my mother every week, and was disturbed by conditions at the home, including the overall quality of care. Unfortunately, what I heard revealed that conditions at most facilities were even worse, and my mother was happy there.

According to Medicare-prepared ratings, most Pennsylvania long-term care facilities are substandard, with numerous deficiencies. (The source linked to is private, but uses Medicare-based data).

In 2006, almost one in five nursing homes were cited for serious deficiencies that caused actual harm or placed residents in immediate jeopardy.

If you consider that most people who live in assisted living facilities are not visited at all, you can see that it is impossible to rely on children or friends of residents to sound the alarm. Reliable, independent monitoring of the facilities is necessary.

Commonsense Reforms

Respect for older Pennsylvanians doesn't need to take a lot of money. All that is needed is some thought and consideration for our seniors. In a word, Respect.

For example, whenever medicines are administrated incorrectly, and harm is caused, the incident must be reported to the state. That's a good start, but it's like locking the barn door after the horse escaped. We could prevent that from happening by making sure every incorrect medicine or dosage was reported. Then people will be far more careful in their dosing, and corrective action can be taken before harm is done.

When you elect me as Lieutenant Governor, I will honor my mother and all older Pennsylvanians by immediately preparing legislation requiring these and similar commonsense reforms. This will be done as soon as I attain office, in honor of my mother - and all Pennsylvanians.

Acting now to help seniors

Respect means not having to take our ideas on faith. Respect means demonstrating them in action during the course of our campaign. If you like what we're doing, we'd like you to vote for us and help spread the word.

For example, our campaign is all about making you a more informed consumer of personal care homes, and making sure abuse and neglect is controlled more stringently. We are starting this mission right now by unveiling our personal care home directory. It really makes it easy and straightforward to check the record of every personal care facility in Pennsylvania.