Report on Mother’s heart Nursing Home Visit

Report on Mother’s heart Nursing Home Visit
Mother’s heart is an assisted living facility created in 1998 to provide care for elders and people with disabilities. The facility offers supervision with activities of daily living for eldercare also as a replacement for those who are not fit to live independently but require 24 hour medical care but are considered too young to be living in a retirement home. The visit to the site happened from morning to afternoon having been permitted by the administrator. This was purposely meant to understand all the activities taking place in nursing home on a daily basis. The first quest was to familiarize ourselves with all important information about the home such as history, administrative structure, number of clients it had at that time and staff, daily programs from morning to night and other external services the organization benefits such as funding.
On the first quest, prior to making observations, the administrator gave us a book containing detailed information about the organization as well as the map of the facility. From the book, we learnt that the organization was started in 1998 with a vision of providing a conducive resting place for elder people. Overtime, the organization adjusted its vision to accommodate disabled people since the entire region lacked a credible and licensed facility to provide to provide care for such individuals. It was founded by a group of three families whose main agenda was to provide quality services without focusing on the financial gain. The name was as a result of inspiration the quintessential role of a mother in nursing children. The administrator informed us that the organization compared its vision and mission to that of a mother who has just given birth and would do everything to ensure that her baby enjoys good health and peace of mind. Fortunately, Mother’s Heart has stood the test of time and was recognized by the government for its outstanding services to the community.
The facility is made up of different departments namely, human resources, accounting, administration, medical, records, hospitality and security department. Human resource department is in charge of recruiting social workers, interns, volunteers, licensed nurses and other help service providers such as security, cleaners and cooks. The human resource manager ensures that every department has adequate number of employees in relation to the company’s capacity and advertises available opportunities and gaps. The accounting department deals with financial engagements of the organization. The organization has one cashier and an accountant. The cashier calculates bills and receives payments for every patient admitted while the accountant budgets and handles all the financial matters for Mother’s Heart. Mother’s Heart is headed by Director in Charge, Deputy Director and Administrator and department heads. Each has their offices and during the visit, the administrator took us around all departments except for the directors’ who were absent. The Director in Charge oversees all the activities taking place in the organization and receives the reports on the daily basis. The Deputy takes care of public relation matters, communications and discipline in the facility more so among heads of departments. The administrators who took us around spelt clearly that his function was to coordinate flow of activities between various departments and ensures that all the assignments and work are done in time and every worker such as security, cleaners, cooks perform their duties timely enough and excellently.
A day in Mother’s Heart featured numerous activities and programs planned exclusively for elder people and physically disabled. Having arrived in the facility at 7am, we observed arrival of employees who signed during their entry. The patients were woken up at 7.30 am the start the day with few exercises. The exercises included light physical activities such as walking, jumping, slow running for those who can and physiotherapy sessions for those physically disabled and are seeking to recover. Trainers tailored different exercises for different patients but it was compulsory except for those bedridden, on a wheelchair or sick. This was shortly followed by hospitality team (after 40 minutes of clean up) also made up of nurses serving food to every patient. The organization had two nutritionists whose services helped prepare certain foods for different patients. This implies that the menus was not the same for all patients but were made depending on the health condition such as those recovering from cancer, obesity and had different weights. The nurses were all friendly to the patients and in nor circumstance did we notice any form of cohesion towards any elder or disabled person.
Breakfast was following by medical team, composed of doctors, nurses and nutritionists, who carried out checkups, gave drugs, prescribed drugs and made referrals in instances where patients were ill and had to be taken to hospitals. Being an assisted living facility, it constantly benefited from external health care services. After treatment, every client got an opportunity to rest at will, play, watch television and even socialize with others patients as well as receive visitors. At this juncture, the administrator allowed us to socialize with them the patients and we received positive feedback concerning the quality of service delivery. As we also noticed, a number of groups constantly came in to meet the elder people. These included singers, churches who came to pray for them and social groups who just came in to bond with the clients and occasionally brought along gifts and rewards. Lunch was followed by medication, then group sessions which we were informed to take place thrice in a week. In the group session, patients shared about their problems, plans and life stories in bid to initiate inner healing and occasionally, psychiatrists facilitated the sessions. Mother’s Heart allows visitations on a daily basis as one of the nurses informed us that it was instrumental towards their recovery. The facility had TV and Video rooms where patients could rest during their free moments and even play games such as chess, cards among others. Inspection from health regulatory bodies never came that day but the administrator made it clear that their visit is normally unexpected hence they have to keep up quality in every service
The day ended by administrator affirming to us the mission and vision of the organization as well as future plans. Future plans included; expanding the facility to accommodate the mentally challenged and also construction a rehabilitation center for drug addicts. Generally, I would give the organization a four/five star rating in implementing a number of management principles in making their services as effective as possible.