Members of the Jane Addams Senior Caucus and the Community Renewal Society have been negotiating with Illinois legislators for more than three years to provide more registered nurses and caregivers for the sick and elderly in nursing homes. On Thursday, they gathered at the Thompson Center Plaza in Chicago to pressure lawmakers to take action.
The group held a prayer vigil and performed a skit poking fun at all of the lobbying money spent to block its efforts. About 100 people attended the rally.
The Illinois Nursing Home Reform Bill, which would increase safety measures and staffing levels in all Illinois nursing facilities, was passed in both houses and signed by Gov. Patrick Quinn in 2010. But with the administrative orders being left out of the bill, for-profit nursing home owners have been able to lobby against senior advocates over the minimum required registered nursing staff time.
“We have fought for three years for nursing home reform legislation,” said Gene Horcher, Jane Addams Senior Caucus and 12-year committee member. “We got it through the legislature and signed by the governor in 2010, now its time for action.”
In the upcoming Department of Public Health meeting on April 17, The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules will vote on the proposed 20 percent increase in registered nurse care for all nursing home residents, which would equate to 45 minutes per resident.
“We are letting the legislature and governor know that we will not go away,” said Arrie Jones, a Community Renewal Society member and rally organizer.
With the bill being passed with out any administrative rules, the bill is not able to affect current nursing home standards, which the protestors feel that has led to neglect and abuse of nursing home residents.
Louise Cambridge, who has a son in a nursing home, said her child has been in various nursing homes for four year. She said she has had to repeatedly move him to find adequate care. She shared her son’s experience in a particular nursing home.
“I went to see him on a Saturday, lunch was over and he was not in the dining room, Cambridge said. “He had not been bathed, he still had a gown on, there was no food in his room, and he had not been serviced and it was 1:30. To me that’s ugly.”
With multiple stories of nursing home neglect, community members and activist groups alike are pushing for change. At the rally demonstrators preformed an impromptu play that satirized the legislator and the nursing home owners tactics of spreading money around, along with testimonials from family members and a prayer vigil.
“Chicago nursing homes tend to turn into institutions for people with mental illness, which isn’t right, said Ellen Glover, a civic organizer. “People with mental illness are fully able to recover and when they’re in nursing homes they aren’t pushed toward the recovery.”
A spokesperson for the Oak Park Health Center declined to comment on the legislation.
“The organized money is trying to make money of this deal,” Horcher said. “We are the organized people, and we are trying to make sure that we the taxpayers get something for our money and that our loved ones and anyone in a nursing home gets quality care.”
Tim Shaunnessey, Victoria Coleman, Tina Spentzos, and Colin Hill contributed to this story.
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