“Our vision is to advocate for those who can’t, support those who can, and ensure all long-term care consumers live with dignity and respect,” Franklin County Ombudsman Angie Pickel said at a lecture on Thursday in Shippen Hall on gerontology, which is the study of aging. 

“Ombudsman” means citizen representative in Swedish. They provide services to support people who need caregiving.

Pickel works for the Franklin County Area Agency on Aging, and described a few stories about situations in which people were not being treated properly by their caregivers.

Pickel received a complaint from a staff member at a personal care home who told her that the home was hiding a resident. Whenever they had a fire drill, they did not evacuate the resident, Pickel said.

Pickel decided to call someone at the Department of Human Resources, which investigated the situation. The individual found a bed-bound man who needed a lift to get out of bed, and medications were all around his room. It was then deemed true that his caretakers would shut his door and leave him in his room when they had fire drills.

The personal care home was cited, and the man was discharged to a nursing home.

Another personal care home was cited because a couple refused to evacuate during fire drills, and were removed from the home because they were not obeying rules.

One day, Pickel received a call about an 80-year-old couple who were about to lose their home because their son had embezzled most of their money.

Pickel went to protective services, where she told them the story and named the couple. 

Protective services said they have already tried to help the couple. They told them their son was using them, and they needed to stop giving him money or they would become destitute, but they continued to give him money. Now, they do not qualify for medical assistance and they need to go into a long-term care facility.

In another instance, an elderly woman was being cared for by her son and daughter-in-law. She had dementia and wanted to sit on her porch one night. The caregivers tried to get her to come inside, but she refused. Instead they let her sit on the porch for 24 hours until a neighbor found her very dehydrated and called 911. She died in the hospital. This became a neglect case and criminal charges were pending.

Ombudsman services are 75 percent state-funded, 20 percent federally-funded and 5 percent county funded. In a 2015-2016 census, almost $4 million was allotted to the Franklin County Area Agency on Aging.

The agency delivers services to the community, including Apprise, which is a federally-funded program that provides Medicare classes, health insurance options and more.

Pickel told the audience that elderly people grew up in an era when nursing homes did not have rights, and she wants to let them know to “speak up, know your rights and how to use them.”

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