The public hearing, as mandated by Massachusetts state law, into the closure of the Farren Care Center in Turners Falls, Massachusetts, took place on September 16th. It was farcical. We are, as you may have noticed, in the middle of a pandemic, so ‘public’ in this case, meant ‘phone-in’. Except all the official notifications sent out gave the wrong phone number, corrected in haste and incompletely on the day of the hearing. It was both ridiculous and heart-breaking. Ridiculous with the justifications for this cynical act of injustice, heartbreaking with the testament of Farren relatives, guardians, workers and ex-workers pleading for the extraordinary work that is done in this neglected and underfunded building to be allowed to continue.
Firstly, the Farren Care Center should not be closing. Secondly, the Farren Care Center should not be closing during a pandemic. Thirdly, Non-profit In name Only (NINO) is a thing.
The Farren, as people around it call it, is a Skilled Nursing Facility providing specialized care to residents who have been refused by three, or five, or in one gentleman’s case, seventy-five other nursing homes, because of their euphemistically named ‘behavioral issues.’ Residents have mixed medical and psychiatric diagnoses, and many, including my husband, have dementia. The Farren was created in 1990 by the Sisters of Providence to care for the uncared for, unloved, and unwanted, and has done so until this year, when its new owners, Trinity Health Care of New England, decided to close it.
Trinity refers to the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, doesn’t it? It means it’s a Christian organisation, and more specifically, Catholic. Catholics can be nice people, can’t they? They can plaster their Facebook page with inspiring messages and advocacy, and that means they are right, right?
Health means keeping people healthy. That’s what a good Catholic non-profit health care company does, right? So that must be why Trinity are closing the only behavioral health hospital in Western Massachusetts, mustn’t it?
Care means that you care for people. Caring people care for people. So that must be why, during a pandemic, when according to state law there must be at least 20 feet between one tent and another in a campground, the caring thing to do is to shut one Skilled Nursing Facility with 105 current residents and sell them and the valuable license for providing specialized care to another Skilled Nursing Facility 40 minutes away. This second nursing home has 75 current residents and capacity for a total of 125. 105 plus 75 makes 180, so there are 55 spare nursing home residents going, if anyone wants to buy one. The second nursing home is being bought by a for-profit nursing home management company from another state, if that sale, which is contested goes through. If it doesn’t, there will be 105 residents of the Farren for sale, rather than just 55.
This outfit is called iCare. Their “core values” are Education, Nurturance (what?), Respect, Innovation, Commitment and Health, which cutely spells ENRICH. Sadly, that leaves Health at the end, but otherwise it wouldn’t be cute. They "focus their care delivery on Nurturance, use Innovation to reach their service deliver goals and they have Commitment to their mission, between themselves and the customers they serve". The nursing homes in Connecticut that iCare run have pretty consistent poor-to-mediocre ratings on Medicare’s Nursing Home Compare site, which is a very useful tool if you’re looking to house a soon-to-be-homeless person with complex medical needs.
The first time I came across iCare was when, as a family member, I was invited to a meeting at the Farren shortly after Trinity took over ownership in 2017. The meeting was to present iCare’s Behavioral Management programme. There were just five other family members present, which in itself proved just how solitary many of the residents are and how necessary the loving care that the Farren provides is. The three iCare guys talked down to us and presented glossy brochures and charts; the six family members who had never met before said with one voice “You lot should come in here and see what people are doing before you start telling them how to do it. Because they’ve got it right.”
Apparently we were not heard, since iCare are now buying up the license and shipping whichever Farren residents don’t die to Mount Saint Vincent’s in Holyoke. The human beings who provide the loving care, the good practice and intimate knowledge of each individual needy person, the mission as stated and carried out by the Sisters of Providence will be scattered to the winds, to Holyoke or out of the profession entirely.
This how you Kill the Poor
Comments
Post a Comment