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Melvin wearing his
Memphis ADAPT beret |
By Tim Wheat
I saw Melvin Douglas board a plane for Denver Colorado almost two years ago. He was leaving Memphis Tennessee because he did not want to live in a nursing home. Yesterday, I visited Melvin at his apartment in Denver.
Melvin told me that his bedsore had healed and he was looking forward to going to the ADAPT Action May 11-16 in Washington DC.
“I’m doing alright,” Melvin says with a big smile.
Although Melvin had lived 40 years in Memphis, his grown daughter still lives there; he now calls Denver “home.” He has a large apartment and receives attendant services to assist him with routine tasks that he cannot perform because of a disability. In Tennessee attendant services are virtually non-existent, leaving the nursing home the only option for people with disabilities.
“I was hoping health care had got better there in the state of Tennessee, but it seems like Governor Sundquist still got his fingers in the cookie jar,” said Melvin. “I’m still holding out, hoping things get better back there. I just hope that things can get like they are here in Colorado.”
I vividly remember visiting Melvin in various nursing homes in Memphis. Because he is so independent, generally I would find Melvin in the nursing home because the staff would not get him out of bed. Melvin’s rooms in these nursing homes were about half the size of his current living room, and he does not have to share the space with a roommate.
The irony that Melvin points out is that he receives better “health care” in his own home than in a Tennessee nursing home. He developed pressure sores on his hip while in a nursing home and believes that it is only because of getting out of the nursing home that he recovered.
“I don’t think I could have gotten this thing healed up in the state of Tennessee – in a nursing home,” said Melvin.
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Melvin's Living Room (twice the size of the rooms he used to share in the nursing home) |
Although nursing homes assert they give “24 hour care,” actually the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services finds that people in nursing homes get no more than 1.7 hours of direct care. Melvin says there is no “nursing” in the nursing home. He said he did not get any wound care for his pressure sores until he got out of the nursing home.
Melvin had both of his legs amputated in a Tennessee nursing home because poor care had resulted in pressure sores, and failure of the institutions health care allowed those sores to grow to destroy both of his legs. Melvin’s motivation to get out of the nursing home, it seems, is to save his life.
Melvin put great effort in being outside of the nursing home during his days in Memphis. With a limited income, about $30 of discretionary funds, Melvin’s options were limited outside the institution. Nevertheless, he found creative ways to spend his time and in 1998 he often came to the Memphis Center for Independent Living looking for a way to get out of the institution.
Melvin actually cobbled together a strategy to get out of the nursing home and live in the community. It required a significant contribution on the part of a personal attendant, who drastically discounted her time on to provide services on nights and weekends. The limited services provided in Tennessee do not cover weekends or more than one visit a day.
The current home and community based arrangement in Tennessee is completely inadequate to allow people to move out of a nursing home. Many states are cutting Medicaid spending by home and community based services as an alternative to nursing home placement. Nursing homes are the most expensive and least desirable form of long-term care.
Life outside a nursing home is very different.
“You get to eat what you want and you spend your money on what you want,” said Melvin. “You know, you are free to go when you are ready to go.”
Here in Denver there is a different feel as I walk the streets and see various people with disabilities active in the community. It is very different than what I expect to see around Memphis. Particularly people with disabilities are obvious on public transportation. Although they stand out to me, the locals seem to pay no attention. Although Melvin talks about getting back home, the different attitude here in Denver makes the community seem years ahead of Memphis.
“It will probably take years for it to get straight in Tennessee,” said Melvin, “because these things don’t spring up overnight. I know that.”
Memphis Underground Railroad Terminal in Denver PART
TWO: Willie Robinson
E-mail Tim Wheat at tim@mcil.org
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