Home care disaster plan Archives ⋆ Cathy Cress

Rural Living Elders Greatest Risk to Perish in Massive Hawaii Fires

August 14, 2023

RURAL LIVING ELDERS AT GREAT RISK IN FIRES _ELDERLY 2XMORE LIKELY TO DIE IN FIRES

Rural Living elders are at great risk of fires. The U.S. Fire Administration estimates that older adults are more than twice as likely than the general population to die in fires. One-quarter of the Paradise residents, in the devastating fire that burnt down an entire California town in 2018, through PG&E Malfeasance had a disability which is double the statewide statistic. One geriatric care manager who lives there lost his home and practice trying to rescue a local older client.

Rural Living elders at great risk in fires showed up again in the present Hawaii fire. The devastating Hawaii fire that just destroyed the entire town of Lahaina on Maui where over 90 people have now been found dead and this number is growing fast and 1000 are missing. This fire is rated above the Campfire which destroyed the town of Paradise in 2018. Many of those suspected dead in Lahaina are thought to be older people who could not escape quickly enough as it was a fire that was swept by Hurricane Dora’s 80-mile-an-hour winds spread the fire so fast that many many just could not escape. Lionel Montalvo, retired fire chief in Lahaina, said that many dead elderly would be found

Decades of research confirm that the physical limitations that accompany advanced age make it much more difficult to escape disaster, but so do the social isolation and stubbornness that experts say is common among the elderly.

BREATHING PROBLEMS FOR SENIORS UBER RISK IN FIRES

The elderly are at the greatest risk for fire-related breathing problems according to the CDC.So if they just live in fire-prone areas and do not lose their home the very air they breathe can make them ill or actually kill them. Wildfire smoke can in the worst cases be deadly, especially among older people. Studies have shown that when waves of smoke hit, and patients experience respiratory problems, heart attacks, and strokes.

In 23 counties, older Californians overwhelmingly choose to live in fire-prone areas. Including in San Luis Obispo County, where 82% do live in rural areas.

Rural Living elders are at great risk of fires. That means nearly 2 million older Californians live in areas where wildfire is a formidable threat. It is not only the elderly who are losing homes in these rural Forest fires but those in facilities.

According to NPR in San Francisco, there are more than 10,000 long-term care facilities in California, from six-bed assisted living homes to large nursing centers.

Their analysis found that 35% of these facilities are in risky areas. With as many as 105,000 residents to safeguard if fire comes, these care home operators must now consider how to evacuate during a pandemic, a more complicated and difficult task.

California is aging faster than the rest of the country. In 10 years, the state projects the number of people over 65 will grow to 8.6 million.

RURAL LIVING ELDERS AT GREAT RISK IN FIRES SANTA CRUZ COUNTY FIRES TURNED REDWOODS INTO INFERNOS

In Santa Cruz, California, where my home and my home office are located wildfires in our Santa Cruz mountain forest burnt down 25 % of our county in 2020. Of the two most damaged areas in the county was Bonnydoon, a rural area overlooking the Pacific which is very beautiful and rural. Among the many senior facilities damaged was Brookdale Senior Living which was evacuated due to smoke damage and inhalation by residents. They had to send patients to the Bay area, and in the Brookdale case, frail confused elders were sleeping on cots close to each other, risking COVID-19 and exacerbating their confusion, according to one daughter who moved her mother to her home in Santa Cruz permanently.

ELDERS COLLIDE WITH CLIMATE CHANGE

“There is absolutely a colliding of the events of both population aging and climate change,” said the University of South Florida gerontologist Kathryn Hyer. The elderly population represents 1/5 of our population and growing. Climate disasters as we can see from one climate catastrophe after another this year -like the Maui fire explode in power and frequency. According to the EPA, these colliding statistics are a formula for a disaster in a disaster.

Climate change is having a significant impact on wildfires according to the National Oceanic &Atmospheric Administration

Rural Living elders a great risk of fires and it is only getting hotter, harder to breathe more dangerous for all worldwide US residents reflected in the heat wave in Arizona and Texas with a high-risk population of aging individuals but radically more so for elders, who are number 1 in health problems and live at home or in facilities in the middle of these mammoth forests, turned into infernos of death

The 2 Deadliest US Sites of COVID-19 Nursing Homes & Prisons

May 2, 2020

PRISON INMATES AND NURSING HOME PATIENTS NOT 6FT APART – 6 FEET UNDER

70% of inmates in federal prisons have COVID-19. In Kansas, the Lansing Correctional Facility had a riot of inmates over COVID-19 lack of care or protection It took the rebellion to get the coronavirus testing PPE and care. The Bureau of Prisons in Kansas confirmed finally that 79 staff have coronavirus and 88 prisons and prisoners dead.

Older residents in nursing homes cannot rebel like prisoners. Many can’t even walk. The Atlantic Magazine just published an article, We are Killing Elders Now. The writer states “In at least six states, these fatalities account for half of all COVID-19 deaths, and according to the World Health Organization, half of all coronavirus fatalities in Europe have been traced to nursing homes too. Some of this mortality is linked to long-term-care facilities that are shoddily run or that violate health standards. But most of them are doing the best they can with what they have. And they don’t have much”.

KAISER FOUNDATION NURSING HOME STAFFING AND USE OF PPE NOT REQUIRED IN MOST STATES

Kaiser reports -Staff Screening. It is more common for states to recommend rather than require daily screening of staff for illness in NFs (24 states recommend, 16 states + DC require)

Use of PPE. More states recommend (23 states) than require (7 states + DC) staff to use PPE

Two States that require testing for coronavirus of ALL residents of nursing homes are Maryland where 556 have died as of the Washington Post article. and Tennessee

THE FEDS HAVE NO CMS FEDERAL GUIDELINES OR REPORTING

We have no federal guidelines for safety testing according to an article by the Kaiser Foundation

It is now estimated that 16,000 deaths have occurred in nursing homes and that is without the federal government revealing any numbers and not making available any testing. But the numbers are probably huge- if we could just do testing.

CMS announced it would have a meeting of a “panel” of experts “ sometime at the end of May”. After probably 20,000 older people died and the feds did nothing this shows their sense of urgency about this pandemic’s national “elder cleansing”.

WHAT CONNECTS PRISONS AND NURSING HOMES – CONCENTRATION CAMPS

So, what is the connection between the viral spread of COVID-19 in nursing homes and prisons- 6 feet ? Prisoners and residents, in nursing homes, and prisons cannot social distance. Jails and prisons have human beings crammed together with no choice. Nursing homes have 2 beds or if you are on Medicaid three to a room. Neither group has a choice to social distance. They are ” concentrated” as in concentration camps or death camps.

Do SOMETHING – HELP NURSING HOMES PREVENT MORE CARNAGE

So, as someone who has spent her career in aging, I am calling out to everyone, especially professional in aging – do something. Since the feds appear to be doing little- call your congressman, write a letter to the editor.

BE KIND LIKE RACHEL MADDOW REPORTS LA JEWISH HOME LA WAS

Rachel Maddow suggests calling your local nursing homes and see what they need. Be kind like the LA Jewish Home was to a smaller nursing home LA Brier Oaks. They wanted to test their residents and had no tests and the larger LA Jewish Home had tests and shared them with the smaller as a good neighbor. What they found was ravaging but it also showed caring and generosity. Care and be generous and show the helpless elders in nursing homes in your town you are opposed to -nursing home being prisons or concentration camps.

What Concierge Aging Life or GCM Products Work Best During Covid-19?

April 7, 2020

Concierge Clients Who Can Afford Private Geriatric Care Management No Longer Taking Cruises

Tens of thousands are dying in the US and worldwide of coronavirus so a cruise ship of any cruise now wreaks of dying slowly on the ocean with no real hospital and no place to disembark. This is not the product that the upper 10% or anyone would board now. But in better times concierge products like a Viking Cruise as it is understandable to a high-end customer. They buy it –because it has exceptional services and recognizes their entitled station in life. Coronavirus recognizes no status class and kills all equally.

Sell Products Clients Need During the Pandemic

Geriatric care managers, rather than tell inquiry clients they do assessment–should offer products they need in this pandemic – like relocation (moving an older person). Elders who live in dangerous SNF facilities, so vulnerable to COVID-19

In an article from the LA Times Charlene Harrington a Professor from UCFS states”Families with loved ones in nursing homes should consider pulling them out if it’s at all feasible to care for them at home, said Charlene Harrington, professor emeritus at UC San Francisco’s School of Nursing.

“The risk of exposure is so overwhelming,” said Harrington, who has studied nursing homes since the 1980s. “It’s a terrible concern.”

ALCA suggested that you call all the SNF’s in your area and expalin that you specialize in moving elders and can be of help to their clients who are moving out of SNF’s due to family concerns.

GCM Products for the Isolated and Lonely Seniors During Stay at Home Orders

Quality of Life (increasing the joy in an older person’s life who is lonely) can be an important service to offer during the coronavirus pandemic. Seniors who live alone are already isolated, lonely, and depressed and the virus only causes this to explode in their lives. Quality of Life programs like Sage Eldercare’s Humminbird Program has gone remote and can be purchased for a minimal amount for client’s by families or agencies, nationally. Nina Herndon GCM, Sage owner and innovator, started this program several years ago because she was tired of watching elders she served watching TV 40 hours a day. She has brought it into the digital world to serve coronavirus patients nationally. Nina also wrote the Chapter on how to set up a Quality of Life program in my book Handbook of Geriatric care Management 4th edition

Products For Seniors Discharged from Hospitals in Pandemic When SNF’s will NOt Take Them

Home from the Hospital is a GCM product the Safely helps the older client through discharge and the first 3 months to make sure they do not return to the hospital, which now is overrun with coronavirus patients and at capacity.

. Home From the Hospital pinpoints exactly what the older person needs for discharge with the hospital and why the family is desperately calling for help. They are calling for help at a piercing decibel level because nursing homes will not take them for fear of COVID 19 infection of their residents

To do this, offer these products to families third parties, hospitals and nursing homes in this crucial time. develop continuously integrated solutions through a product procedure placed in your company operation manual, along with all of your products so you ensure your staff can deliver, step by a step-that high-end product that the Concierge client especially under the huge stress of the coronavirus with vulnerable parents -just purchased and demands. If you do not have an operation manual, I have all these products in my GCM Operations Manual plus 11 more, with all the procedures in place so you can instantly offer them. I will offer a 20% discount for the GCM manual during the pandemic for Geriatric Care Management Agencies suffering during the coronavirus outbreak. Contact me here

Do You Have Emergency Procedures For Coronavirus For Your Agency?

March 20, 2020

Do you have procedures for an emergency at your agency?

The coronavirus has put home care and geriatric care management agencies in a terrible bind. Most GCM ‘s or home care agencies had no emergency procedure in place for any disaster but even if they did a pandemic was not anticipated by almost anyone in the catalog of emergencies.

AGING LIFE CARE ASSOCIATION HELP WITH CORONAVIRUS

Now that it is upon us geriatric care managers can benefit from the Aging Life Care Association’s webinars on Zoom to help their ALCA and geriatric Care Management agencies. The ability of any care management agency, serving frail elders, to function despite an emergency is critical. For example for members the have an upcoming Webinar through Zoom-TAKING ON NEW CLIENTS WHILE BEING “QUARANTINED”, which is incredibly valuable

They offer a daily blog for geriatric care managers with updates on an ALCA of GCM Practice under the coronavirus threat and are much-needed resources in these highly traumatic times. With agencies unable to directly see clients in states where like California have imposed at Stay at Home order where geriatric care manager cannot see their clients except virtually and on top of that both care staff and care management staff may have come down with the virus, information about how to keep your agency going is invaluable. Membership in ALCA could be very valuable to geriatric care managers. If you join tell them I sent you.

NEED FOR AN EMERGENCY PLAN FOR EVERY DISASTER

An emergency plan for all emergencies is necessary for all geriatric care management and ALCA agencies. With massive hurricane Dorian lasting 2 weeks last year and the west once again facing massive wildfires, tornados already wreaking devastation this season and the polar vortex perhaps coming again next year-do you have emergency procedures?

Informal agency emergency procedures work in a start-up care management business but what if the solo practitioner is ill and out?

If illness, accident, some other unforeseen event overtakes an owner or manager, no emergency procedures can be suicide in an emergency, not to mention liability to your elderly clients.

You could be like these two GCM’s who lost their businesses in weather events that knocked them out.

PARADISE FIRE DEVASTATION OF A GERIATRIC CARE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

GCM Jim Boyd of Paradise, California lost everything in the catastrophic fire in the town of Paradise, where he lived and practiced. He was trying to check on an aging client in Paradise, located in the midst of the Sierra forest when the huge forest fire immolated the entire town. Although a Go Fund Me started by the Aging Life raised almost $10,000 for Jim, he did not have enough to rebuild his home where he had his home-based GCM business. Then he and 90% of the residents of Paradise never returned.

Every geriatric care professional needs a formal, written backup plan that dictates action, should a disaster or emergency arise.

It ‘s necessary to assess your company’s risk of temporary or permanent service disruption if a disaster or emergency is experienced. This may seem an overwhelming task at first, but when you break it down into pieces, it becomes workable.

Learn about preparing for emergencies how you can prepare you, your clients and staff for disasters and absences of key personnel.

With pandemic’s, global warming’s effects causing floods, larger hurricanes, and the specter of more catastrophic weather events, you need to prepare now. Get the new Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition now– or out in Kindle or hardback with an excellent chapter on how to prepare your agency for disasters, plus forms to use, by GCM President Liz Barlow.

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