My dad is in a wheelchair most times and staff often take the foot rests totally off the chair at various times. Well last week I noticed he had a metal one which wasn’t his and the black plastic one which is his. They had no idea where the other foot rest went. Mind you this was a new wheelchair in December. Then today I noticed the padded gel cushion we bought for it is missing. I am irritated that we will have to buy a new one when it’s not our fault it’s gone. Do nursing homes ever reimburse or purchase items that go missing through their own negligence?
Make sure your father’s name is on EVERYTHING. Use masking tape and permanent marker on his footrests. Also, don’t bring in irreplaceable items.
Losing prescription glasses or hearing aids is much more costly and replacing them is often difficult, although their small size make it easier to understand how it can happen.
Losing part from a wheelchair is a whole 'nother level of incompetence and I would insist on a door by door search. My mom's chair cost over $5K and her ROHO cushion almost $700, if something happened to it there is no excuse that would satisfy me.
I started taking Mom's clothing home to launder it myself, because:
1) The clothing kept disappearing - Mom was a large woman and her clothing was not cheap. A simple muu-muu nightgown in the style she liked could be $30 to replace.
2) I just couldn't stand the thought of her clothing being tossed into a communal hamper with other residents' soiled clothing - they kept these wheeled hampers in the hallways at all times, and all dirty bedding, clothing, etc all went into them. I don't know about you, but even if they are laundering them in hot water, etc - I don't want my mom's clothes in with someone else's that may have C-Diff or something else. And just the thought of someone else's waste getting on the clothes is just gross. They lose enough dignity being in a NH as it is - no need to make it worse.
Sometimes, the missing clothing would turn back up, no worse for wear. Sometimes it just never would re-appear at all. I never filed a claim for the missing items - I got tired of fighting the battle.
If you wind up finding or buying new footrests, tie AND tape a heavy canvas bag with a drawstring to the wheelchair handle (with his name on it!) so they can put the footrests in the bag when he is being transported.
My mother's nursing home has occasional "laundry days" on which one can search through a stack of clothes and find missing items. Sometimes name tags fade or get torn off. My sister found a few of my mother's missing items by searching through the laundry stacks.
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