[speaker001:] [Talking] Okay. Well, uh, just briefly. Uh, I worked in a nursing home so I kind of know, from way back, uh, how things used to be run and I think there has been definite changes of nursing homes but I think, uh, if I had to personally put one of my parents in a nursing home, they would have to be pretty bad off to where I couldn't take care of them at all. It would be something that, [clicking] you know, I would certainly, [talking] if they're forgetting things or whatever, I'd prefer to have them at home or have them in what they call now home care
[speaker002:] [Breathing] [TV] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] where somebody comes in and they cook meals and they clean their house for them, that kind of thing, so they still have their own independence and not reliable, you know, [clicking] they don't have to be in a nursing home situation. But, uh, I don't think the nursing homes, when I was working in them, were very much understaffed, very much, uh, in need of good personnel. Uh, I think the patients weren't given the quality of care that I wouldn't have, you know, I look at it and say thank God, I got out of that kind of situation. But
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] they, they were not given the time and they were not given the money, basically, to staff, appropriately, people to help.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] And I can remember lifting a patient all by myself, simply because there was not another person to help. It's either le-, leave the patient in bed all day long or get them up and I would have preferred to get them up than [LAUGHTER] to leave them in bed all day. But, uh, uh, so I think nursing homes are, have changed. I'm not quite sure, but hopefully, they have.
[speaker002:] Yeah, wel-, th-, I guess I haven't had that much experience. I've only seen like my great grandparents in a nursing home
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] but
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] I have an aunt who lived on her own until she was well in her nineties
[speaker001:] Sure.
[speaker002:] and then she, she got sick and she ended up in nursing home
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] and my parents went to visit her and it got to the point where the nur-, it seemed like the nursing home didn't want to deal wi-, her anymore
[speaker001:] Sure.
[speaker002:] and so they gave her drugs to keep her asleep.
[speaker001:] Yeah. I, I think that's, that can happen and I think in the nursing home that I worked for, I wasn't quite sure of it, but I'm sure that some of the patients were, uh, given medication to keep them in, uh, quiet and, and,
[speaker002:] Nice sedative state.
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah. And they would just lay all day long and, uh, the ones tha-, they also put mentally ill patients in the same, they were not on the same, you know, ward, but they, they were in the same nursing home so that these mentally ill patients could walk into where the other, uh, older people that were in there for reasons of, uh, you know age, uh, the mentally ill patients could walk right in, into the rooms or do whatever they wanted to basically. Because if you weren't there to watch them and keep them in their own wing, they could, they had freedom to just walk around and a lot of them were, I think there was a couple that were schizophrenic and I remember one time watching one of the, uh, schizophrenic patients actually go out on, I don't know what they call it, a binge or whatever you want to say it
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] she grabbed a hold of this, and it was kind of funny when I looked back at it, but, I mean, I remember the patient getting very upset. That woman actually pulled, uh, the other person's hair. I mean she just came up right behind him and pulled his hair, you know, and it was a guy that was just really upset. I mean he said what the hell are you think you're doing, you know, and I laughed at it then but then I'm thinking God, you know, if I had to put my parents in that nursing home, I wouldn't want them there. So
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] I think there's laws now that kind of protect. That nursing homes either have to keep the mentally ill totally away from these people and not in the same type of facilities, even though they're aging mentally ill, they are still mentally ill and a lot of these older people have their, you know, they're not insane or anything like that. They don't have these tendencies to, to lash out.
[speaker002:] To be violent.
[speaker001:] But seeing that kind of made me think twice about, jeez, I wouldn't put my mother, father in that nursing home at all.
[speaker002:] Was this in a big town or a little town?
[speaker001:] A small town.
[speaker002:] Oh, really?
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah.
[speaker002:] Because it seems like the small town nursing homes, there's a
[speaker001:] I don't know.
[speaker002:] lot more personal attention.
[speaker001:] I don't know. I, I kind of look at it this way. I think if you have a big city area, I think there's more people to keep watch on it.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh. You have
[speaker001:] And,
[speaker002:] more options.
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah. And you have more competition. And I think nursing homes have to be better than when there's one nursing home for a whole community. And this is back in nineteen seventy-seven that I worked there
[speaker002:] Uh-huh [breathing] [T V].
[speaker001:] and I look back at it and say jeez, you know, i-, it would have to be awfully bad for me to put my parents in there. But my grandmother, uh, later on got cancer and, uh, could no longer, well actually she,