During my volunteer work at Christian Living Campus, I had several lunches with a resident named Jim. Jim used to be a fighter pilot in World War II. As we were eating I notices a bumper sticker on Jim's wheelchair. It read, "Be nice to your kids. They'll choose your nursing home." I asked Jim about it and he laughed and told me that it is very good advise. Jim was nice to his children, and consequently his son chose a great nursing home for him. However, there are nursing homes that have many problems. I wondered under what circumstances it is inappropriate to place your elderly loved ones in a nursing home? After careful deliberation and extensive research I came to a conclusion. It is inappropriate to place your elderly loved ones in a nursing home without proper background research. Before a loved one needs immediate nursing home care, family members should research different homes and explore their options. It is not fair for family members to consider c!
             ost and locality over patient care. If this is the case, and there is no research done, the situation is inappropriate. There are many nursing homes that are understaffed, abuse their patients, and in general, do the patients a disservice. There are also problems with the state and other organizations that contribute to the poor quality in these homes. This cannot be looked at one sided though. There are many nursing homes where the residents are taken care of properly and treated with care and compassion. I will show the negative aspects of the nursing home industry and contrast that with my experience at Christian Living Campus.
             A major problem in nursing homes today is that many of them are understaffed. This does the residents a great disservice because their needs are not taken care of properly or in a timely fashion. A survey that was administered by Reuters Health illustrated, "Of the 7,299 nurses surveyed in December 2000...