Killing off our Veterans at the Vets home, slowly with diabetes.

I have been saying this since 2010. The meals at the Grand Rapids home for veterans are killing the residents due to high amounts of carbohydrate and sugars. This leads to diabetes Type 2 in many otherwise healthy people.

Even when I lived at the home, we usually had those Gowd awful instant mashed potatoes (very high starch, aka sugars) once a day in either lunch or supper meals. If not we had some kind of pasta (noodle) or some kind of high starch item in the meals.  Noodles AND instant mashed potatoes were a double whammy. 

So here is what happens. You go to the home, and move in. You become less active, burning fewer calories, and they begin stuffing you with starches which are in basic forms, sugars.  When your body reaches the point where you are taking in more than you are burning, it starts to store the stuff as body fat. And when your body tank gets full, you end up with insulin resistance, and high sugars in blood. This is Type 2 diabetes.

The American Diabetes Association says the way to treat this is to inject more insulin. Insulin which your body is already reacting to, by either not making it, or not not making enough of it. OR, your body is not reacting to the insulin which helps keep your sugars down.  In other words, these medical genius are trying to force your body to store even more sugar in a body that is already reached its full mark and is saturated with it.

Sounds kinda stupid to me, how about you? But this is what they do, and the Vets home follows the ADA guidelines.  Insulin is not cheap. It also does other things which results in other medical complications. 

Is it possible to reverse the Type 2 condition? Yes. But the home will not and does not treat the problem using the method necessary. And what is that method? Reduce carb/sugar intake to below what the person burns each day. They need to burn off that stored energy from their "full tank" before the Type 2 insulin resistance will reverse itself. 

Think of it like this.. The body is resistant to insulin because there is no place to put the extra sugars because the body's tank is already full. However once you empty the tank, even a little below full, the body then has a place to put extra energy and it will then use the insulin to do so.  Thus insulin resistance is returned to normal.  

The home MUST stop feeding the residents these high amounts of carbs and sugars,  or many more and future residents will continue to develop and die of Type 2 diabetes complications.  Something that can be avoided with a proper diet based on calories being burned, and how much exercise the residents are getting. 

They gotta be going crazy.

Don't know what its like for our folks in lock down at Grand Rapids Home for Veterans, but I can tell you if it is anything like I am going thru, these guys and gals have to be going crazy.

Its been 3 weeks or so since they, have been in lock down. No visitors allowed in or out. And many of us who went there regularly, either as volunteers or as visitors, also have gone into our own version of lock down by staying at home and leaving only when necessary. 

This is not only to protect ourselves, but to protect others in case we have it. Or had it.  -- yes I said had it, and did not know about it.

I know that in late January and in February a number of us non residents had symptoms that our government later said were signs of having COV19, and we had these signs weeks before the government was even putting out information on it.  So did we have this already when we were visiting the home before the lock down?!!  Now that is a scary thought.

Now as for the residents, I am not getting much info from them as to how things are going on the inside. Its like trying to talk to someone in a maximum security prison.

And to add more worry about it, we have had one retirement community in the area already get hit by COV19 and lost some people.  We do not want that happening to our veterans.  I am talking about the place up in Cedar Springs. That is only about 15 miles away from GRHFV.

Still there is hope. Some thing the worst is over and within another 4 weeks or so things will be reopening and we as a people will start to the recovery process to jump start the economy again. And maybe then, the will be able to open up the home to some degree for visitors.

2nd Vets home of 5, under construction in Chesterfield Township

Here is news about the 2nd new Michigan Veterans home, in Chesterfield township. It has 5 pictures of the progress they are making.   Click below to open a new browser window and see the article.

To see the article, click here

Lack of Accountability, not Privatization caused the mess at GRHFV.

The privatization experiment should be ended. We now know that  privatization requires extra vigilance and oversight, for it to work properly and Michigan did not provide that oversight at the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans.

The fiasco at this location was due to economics and again, poor oversight of the Michigan government.  Gov'r Rick Snyder inherited a broken economy, with low revenue streams and lots of welfare bills.  And a dismal veterans care system. We were in last place.

His solution was to create Michigans own version of the VA. MVAA or Michigan Veteran Affairs Agency was created to get Michigan qualified to obtain Federal money which would be used for caring for the vets.

Then the MVAA, state congress, or who ever, decided to skip the rules, ignore the regulations and when the Administrator at the home retired or was ousted (depending on your point of view),  Sara Dunn was pulled out of the kitchens and made top administrator. Kinda stupid, but that's what they did. It was her administration that is the focus of that really bad VA audit, and the group that advocates wanted to see Atty General Bill Scheutte go after, (which he did not)..

Now Gov' Snyder had a juggling act, with the states budget.. The Granholm administration left it in a total mess.

Part of Snyders idea was to run the home as a for profit business. and you cannot do that. It has been a failure.. And the seeds of that failure have been planted into the new authority for the new vets home model. Not a good idea..  This combined with lack of accountability, is what lead to the problems at the vets home. Accountability that is STILL MISSING as the AG office clearly refuses to impose it.


Recently Atty General Bill Scheutte announced criminal charges on some low level employees. Not one higher up administration person has been charged, even when evidence of their wrong doing was given to the AG office which now claims they don't have.

Higher administration officials let things happen at the home and some of them did the atrocities.


Again this page will name names, call for charges, demand justice for our veterans.

Getting Locked out of Carnval 2017 angers some long time attendees.

Saturday was Carnival day at the Vets home.  The yearly event for residents, family members and guests of Residents. Lots of people volunteer to help out. Many past member residents attend, using the event to visit friends who still live at the home.

But this year was different and some found themselves locked out of the event.Apparently the rules changed due to a problem last year.

This year (and next, so this is a warning to all), you MUST BE PRE-REGISTERED if you THINK you MIGHT attend. No last minute, spur of the moment registrations. They want to know who is there, and who is not.

Doors to the buildings were locked. A few were open, such as the main entrance, and the double doors to the pavilion area, next to Kozy corners. Felt like a lock down at a prison. 

Visitors had to register at the main entrance. Then, walk all the way down to the pavilion area and register again as a guest or a volunteer.  There they got a wrist band. Without it, all they could do is walk around. They could not get any water, drinks, food or whatever without getting a wrist band when they registered.

Before this year, registration was not necessary, but encouraged. This year it was and not everyone knew about it. And since they could not register, many just left and went home, feeling locked out.  And they are not happy about this. Nor are some of the residents.

So once again, we have a case of poor communication, lack of information, that prevented some people from participating in this years carnival, which by the way, is the smallest one I have seen in the last 15 years. And I believe it may get smaller, or just stop, as there will be no need for such an event, when the home's population is 150 or less.

Dining hall problems at Vets home covered on local news.

Grand Rapids Home for veterans no longer allowing family to eat a facility 
  Click on link above for full story.

Grand Rapids PRISON for veterans: Veteran cannot afford to complain about the conditions at the home?!

Karen J called me, and said she went to visit her dad Saturday. She was in the Smoking area and saw Ken, one of the veterans. Apparently he had a lot to say. When she asked him why he didn't file a complaint about some of the stuff he talked about,  he gave her an answer she was not expecting.

He said he is in a major pickle. He has no place else to go and is afraid of them transferring him to a nursing home. He said,  and She quotes:  "I can't afford to complain."

This is UN-excusable. Our Veterans should NEVER have to live in these conditions.