Make Sure Your Nursing Home Is Giving You The Correct Medication
As a resident of a nursing home or assisted living facility, there are many things you rely upon the facility to help you with. One of the most important, perhaps, is the administration of prescription or over-the-counter medications. If the facility gives you the wrong medication, the consequences can be dire, even fatal.
In an article posted today, KSAX, an ABC affiliate in Minnesota, reports on such a medication error. According to reporter Megan Matthews, the facility gave another's medication to a resident. The result was death. According to the CEO of Fair Oaks Lodge, Mr. Joel Beiswenger, the medication error and resulting death was "just one of those things that happened. Nobody intended to do anything, and it was the human making the tragic error." a
Mr. Beiswenger appears to either honestly miss, or simply ignore, an important point: Similar medication errors have occurred no fewer than two other times at the facility. This facts leads me to question whether Mr. Beiswenger or Fair Oaks Lodge have taken adequate steps to find the root cause of such errors. Was the facility adequately staffed for the number and acquity of the residents? Was the staff adequately trained to ensure medications were given only to the proper resident? Were there safeguards in place to prevent a medication error which led to a resident's death?
If you are a resident of a nursing home or assisted living facility, make sure the medications you receive are, in fact, your own. Make sure you receive them in the correct dosages at the proper times. The life you save may be your own. If you are the family member of a nursing home or assisted living facility resident, make sure the facility takes adequate precautions to prevent medication errors. Such medication errors can and do occur and, as demonstrated by the incident at Fair Oaks Lodge, the results can be catastrophic.
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, 
Although the owners of the assisted living facility say this was a tragic "accident that could have been prevented," because of the facility's policies, what is more telling is the fact that the aide had worked for the facility "on and off for nine years." This fact leads me to believe the aide was simply not properly trained to perform her job. If the facility had properly trained her, there would have been no doubt in the aide's mind about what needed to be done when she found Mr. Foster. I am sure the assisted living facility, no doubt, conducted a training session immediately after this tragedy. Unfortunately, for Mr. Foster and his family, that training came too late.
