October 22, 2007

By Corrine Falline

At a few minutes after noon today, our bus pulled up in front of Carlyle headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue in DC. The article on the front page of today’s Washington Post business section had us fired up and ready to go.

According to the Post, Carlyle sent a "patients first pledge” to state regulators across the country today saying that they’ll continue to provide “quality” services for patients and “proper” education and training for staff.

For five days now, our caravan has been traveling from state to state to talk about the pending buyout. I work in a Manor Care facility. Yet apparently Carlyle didn’t think of me as enough of a stakeholder in the deal to bother informing me of the pledge. They took it to state regulators first, and the media second.

I read about it first in the Washington Post. And now I can’t help but question their sincerity.

If Carlyle really were concerned about putting patient care first, wouldn’t patients, caregivers, advocates, and community leaders have been somewhere on that short list of privileged pledge recipients?

If they really were concerned about patients first, would they have ignored our call for specific commitments to improve care and responded instead with words as pliable—and potentially meaningless—as “quality” and “proper”? 

If they really were concerned, wouldn’t they have come out and told us so today when we visited their offices, instead of watching from behind closed glass doors while metro police babysat us for an hour on their front steps?

Carlyle, we will not be fooled—and we certainly will not be silenced—by vague pledges in a press release. Maybe your investors will, maybe Manor Care shareholders will, but we will not.

Our requests are basic:
• Ensure that nursing homes are in compliance with federal minimum resident care regulations;
• Ensure that homes are staffed at levels recommended by independent experts as improving quality of care;
• Disclose the impact of the buyout to residents, workers and taxpayers;
• Structure the buyout so that Manor Care staff has a role in the reorganization; and
• Create a Quality Care Fund and a new advisory committee comprised of Manor Care staff, resident advocacy groups and other stakeholders to improve patient care in all Manor Care homes.

Our patients—soon to be your patients, too—deserve these minimum commitments, don’t you think?

Let us know what you decide. We’ll be outside…waiting.

Corrine Falline works as a dietary aide at the HCR Manor Care Dulaney Towson Nursing Center in Towson, Maryland. She is a member of SEIU 1199 UHE.