13 Years in 20 Minutes

EVENT NARRATIVE IN SUPPORT OF POTENTIAL LITIGATION

Sunrise Senior Living

Sean Boyd

645 Military East

Benicia, CA 94510

703-772-3798

[email protected]

I worked as an activities professional since 2009. I have conducted activities with seniors of differing backgrounds, from the poor, Medicare and Medicaid recipients to the wealthy, private-pay part-owners of their senior community. I also worked with residents with a wide variety of cognitive impairments, from residents with mild memory loss to the deeply impaired. Ever since I started in this business, I have received nothing but good to excellent annual performance reviews. I formed bonds with many of the residents I’ve worked with and I have loved some of them like they were my own grandparents. I took my job seriously and took pride in all of my accomplishments, both large and small. But unbelievably, all of my experience, all of my love, and all of my seriousness and pride were not enough to save me. I made one mistake that wiped out a 13-year career in 20 minutes.

Not too long ago, I was walking six residents to a park adjacent to a senior community in California. I did the same walk with mostly the same residents nearly every day. It was routine. Unfortunately, on this day, two of the community’s newest residents joined us on the walk. Soon after their arrival, the two residents coupled up like some do in a community such as ours. It was endearing to see them walking with us hand in hand, occasionally stealing kisses along the way. I was walking behind them with the slower walkers. We typically had walkers with differing physical abilities. Some residents used canes or walkers. Other residents had hip, knee, or leg issues. A few were in great shape, walking as briskly as people half their respective ages. The two lovebirds were in the latter category and soon got ahead of us, way ahead of us. In a short time, they were several yards ahead until they came to an important turn on the path. At this turn, we would typically turn left to return to the community; it was a part of the routine. Unfortunately, the love birds were cognitively impaired and turned right and made their way to the street, and kept on walking. Thinking that we were taking parallel paths back to the community, I would see them shortly as we emerged out of the park. So, I allowed them to continue. They continued to walk passed the building, across a street, and into the Kaiser Permanente Building about 200 yards away from the community. They were gone. We didn’t know where they were.

This was the first time I’d made this kind of mistake in my 13 years of working in activities. The whole community went on “red alert.” The Resident Care Nurse got involved. The Assisted Living director got involved. The nursing aides got involved. We searched around the building and back into the park. Inside the building, each resident's room was searched. The closets were searched. The building was turned upside down. The Resident Care Nurse got into her car and began cruising the neighborhood around our building. Then, 20-25 minutes after the crisis began, it was over. The aforementioned local Kaiser Permanente facility called to inform us that the missing resident was with them.

On Tuesday of the next week, the Executive Director, who had been absent for several days, was informed, and by the end of the day, I was placed on administrative leave. What was funny about that day was how the executive director handled my big mistake. In the morning, she took me aside to simply say, “please don’t take them out again.” I thought, well if that is the extent of the consequences of my error, I was getting off pretty easy. Maybe, I was nervous about this whole ordeal for nothing. Then, as the day was coming to a close, she interrupted me while conducting an activity. She asked me when would the activity be over. I said about 20 minutes. So, I continued with the activity. About 10 minutes later, she interrupted me again. She said that she wanted me to come to her office right away. Then, she asked another staff member to take over the activity.

So, I get to her office and the Business Office Manager was sitting there waiting for me with paperwork in her lap. It was obvious that this was not going to end well. The executive director entered the office and without delay told me that I was being put on leave with pay. That was the last time I would set foot in the community. I was fired (by phone) a week later.

Now, you would think that would be that. I made a mistake, I paid the price. But there’s more to the story, a disturbing set of circumstances leading up to the mistake that cost me my career. If you are a senior citizen or a family seeking a nice place for Mom and Dad, please read what follows closely. You should know the pursuit of profit affects the staff of most assisted living and memory care communities.

First of all, my mistake, or one like it, was inevitable. I should have remembered that the two residents had been identified as wanderers when they first arrived. Why didn’t I? Here’s what I believe. Usually, the coordinators have a daily morning meeting called stand-up. At this meeting, we discuss what rooms have been newly rented, who is moving in, the medical issues new and existing residents may have, and specific issues we need to know about residents. Unfortunately, these meetings were being held more and more sporadically. Sometimes the meetings happened, and sometimes they didn’t. Some days, the meetings were on time at 9:30 am, some days they were late, but on most days, the meetings convened whenever the executive director managed to get in. When the meeting was convened later than scheduled, I had to miss it because I had to start the day’s activities. On these occasions, I missed information, sometimes important information. Eventually, the stand-up meetings became a subject of ridicule because of their inconsistency.

To be honest, I was there when my wayward residents were mentioned. Yes, I was directly warned not to take these residents anywhere, not even on a walk in the park. But let me ask you when an “important” issue is mentioned in a meeting held more and more infrequently, could you have forgotten that warning albeit temporarily? After the residents wandered off, I remembered that I was told not to take them on walks but only after the incident happened. Why? Because I had to think back to that one meeting, that was held two or three weeks before, among a series of late or canceled meetings.

After I was fired, I learned that the two wandering residents were moved to one of the memory units. Now, I ask you, if these residents were elopement risks from the start, why weren’t they placed in memory care in the first place? How were they assessed? Was something missed? I don’t think so. This is what happened. There were no rooms available in memory care but sales and the executive director wanted to fill up the building with as many residents as possible, After all, more residents mean more money, and ultimately eldercare is a business. So these two residents, who were known for wandering off, were placed in assisted living even though they were totally inappropriate to be there. For example, on a regular basis, the female resident wandered into other residents’ rooms and slept in other residents’ beds. The male resident would “feel up” female residents. The two residents together would touch each other in plain sight of other residents, offending some of them.

Oh and one more thing… Adding insult to injury, the community was terribly understaffed. At times there were only one or two aides to care for 40 residents. This was because acquiring new staff was tough because the pay rate that was offered was abysmal, especially in California. When you can make more work at a fast food restaurant, who would want to work an arduous job changing diapers and cleaning up urine and excrement? Now, there was a period when the community retained an agency that supplied temporary aides. Inscrutably, this was discontinued because it was deemed too expensive. Again, profits over care won the day.

This lack of staffing affected me directly. If there was sufficient staffing, there would have been an aide with me on my career-ending day and on every walk, for that matter. The aide would walk with the slow walkers while I would have kept up with the faster ones. Regrettably, I gave up on asking for assistance from aides a long time before that day because, when I asked, the answer was always the same, we’re running short today.

I guess the point I’m making here is that when profits are considered ahead of care, lives could be lost. We were lucky with the wandering lovebirds but what about the next time? In the community I was working in, profit was placed ahead of care on a regular basis. On many occasions, new residents were assessed as being more appropriate for memory care but were placed in assisted living. At other times, residents were accepted who had serious medical conditions that required a level of care that went above and beyond the community’s capacity to provide. Perilously, assessments were overridden by the executive director because there weren’t any rooms available in memory care or he thought we could meet the needs of the seriously ill. The profit motive was too hard to resist.

So, what’s the bottom line? I made a mistake; I own that. However, in the weeks after my termination, I realized that my mistake was a symptom of a larger disease: competition and the profit motive have caused the eldercare industry to drift away from its primary mission, to provide excellent, conscientious care for seniors. Do your homework if you are looking for a place for your loved one(s). Make sure that the community you’re considering has enough staff to meet his/her/their needs. Ask as many questions as you want. Trust your gut.