The Administration of the Michigan Veterans home, called "the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans", located in Grand Rapids Michigan, is just one part of a multi-part problem that veterans have to deal with.
The state health care givers are now being replaced with contract employees, from the group called J2S.
And the J2S workers are just another part of the problem at the Veterans Home.
Governor Snyder has now moved to resume his program of privatization,
and is issuing layoff notices to 138 direct care workers at the GRHV.
These state employees will be replaced by employees of a contractor
currently known as J2S Healthforce Group, and will receive about half
the wages the state workers have earned, and will receive no benefits. So where will the dedication of these workers come from? What will keep them on the job and caring about our veterans? NOTHING. You cannot pay people sub standard pay, and expect them to stay on the job, and do a good job continuously. It just doesn't work that way in the real world.
These people will be looking for better paying jobs with better working conditions. It is not the veterans that will be driving these people - it will be their low pay and lack of professionalism of the managers at J2S that makes them leave.
And it is the Vets that will suffer.
What is most amazing is that the Governor
shows such lack of concern about the welfare of our nation's heroes;
soldiers who were wounded on the battlefield for our freedom, and those who simply need a time out to reorganize their lives so that they can get back into society.
If you look at the allegations made in court about the
horrible treatment offered by the employees of J2S in the past, AND the reports of what they have done already, while they were at the Veterans Home, it truly
shocks the conscience that anyone – let alone our nation's veterans –
should be treated in such a manner:
* An invalid veteran fell off of the bed and broke his neck, after a
contract CNA left him on the bed, unsecure, and left the room;
* A
contract CNA fed a veteran by mouth, when there were specific
instructions (including a sign above his bed) indicating that the
veteran was not to be fed by mouth. Later, the contract CNA pulled the
feeding tube out of the veteran's stomach – the veteran was
hospitalized;
* A veteran was injured when a contract CNA was trying to transfer him from the sling to a wheel chair;
* A contract CNA broke the fingers of a veteran, and bragged about it;
* Veterans being dropped by contract CNAs repeatedly;
* Veterans being left in urine-soaked beds for hours on end;
* Contract CNAs literally walking off during their shift, never to return that shift and abandoning the veterans;
* One Veteran with a Drain Tube in his Stomach, was shoved thru a door, damaging the tube, which removed by an unqualified CNA. Nothing was done to help this veteran who later left the facility and went to the VA in Battle Creek where they drained over 7 liters of fluid from of his belly area. It could have killed him. As it was, the 8 months of lack of proper care, did his heart in and it gave out on him a short time after they got the pressure off of it, when they drained the fluid.
* And last but not the lest, let us remember the Murder of one Veteran by another, because he went to the wrong room or bed. Andy Bell on the Dementia ward, was killed by a fellow veteran patient, due to lack of proper supervision by healthcare workers.
Up until now both State and J2S workers have worked together at the home. But what next? What happens when J2S takes over all the Care Giving? How many times during this last year have people heard on the Facilities Public address system for State care workers to hold, that is not to leave, at the end of their shift, because mandatory overtime was needed.. One or more of them had to stay and work an extra 8 hour shift because some J2S worker did not show up. Such an event was almost an every other daily event, and now it will be even worse as there will be no State workers to back up J2S.
Is that what we want the rest of the Nation to see?
It is a DISGRACE to Veterans.
Michigan might as well just shut the place down, and return those veterans to the care of the Federal VA.
That way Michigan could save even more, and the Veterans would probably end up in a better place.
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