Nursing Home

It is no surprise that the corporate-owned Ravenwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center ("Heat forces relocation of dozens at nursing home," July 7), located in Baltimore City, was reported to be "plagued with air conditioning problems." The truth is that Ravenwood has long been plagued with numerous other problems as well, most of which violate the civil and human rights of residents there. As someone who has volunteered at the facility and as a disability rights advocate, I witnessed multiple inequities and maltreatment: people left in their beds for days, weeks or months on end; people not taken outside to see the sun except for bi-annual doctors' visits; people denied $14 a month when the corporation is paid an estimated $3500 a month for their "services;" and residents told that they do not have the right to choose where they live.

With Baltimore sweating through a second straight day of triple-digit temperatures, state officials ordered the Ravenwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center to relocate all 150 patients because of problems with its air- conditioning system and began a comprehensive investigation of the facility. Throughout the day, residents in wheelchairs and on stretchers were loaded into vans and ambulances, as the West Franklin Street nursing home — where temperatures had climbed as high as 93 amid this week's heat wave — was gradually emptied.

With Baltimore headed for a second straight day of triple-digit temperatures, health authorities ordered that all residents be moved from a Baltimore nursing home plagued with air conditioning problems. The 150 residents of Ravenwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center on West Franklin Street are being transported to new locations, said David Paulson, communications director for Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. About 40 residents were moved Tuesday — after a resident called 911 to report stifling temperatures — but conditions did not improve markedly, so officials called for the broader relocation in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday.

As temperatures climbed toward a record 105 degrees Tuesday, state and local health authorities descended on a Baltimore nursing home where the air conditioning had failed, and relocated dozens of residents from the sweltering rooms. After a resident called 911 around midnight to report stifling temperatures, responding paramedics found that the cooling system at the 190-bed Ravenwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center on West Franklin Street hadn't worked since Friday. They moved at least 40 residents to other locations.

Anne H. Rogers, a lay chaplain who visited the sick in area hospitals and nursing homes as well as in their homes, died Sunday of pneumonia and emphysema at Gilchrist Hospice Care. She was 76. Anne Leary Holland, the daughter of a Chesapeake Bay pilot and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised in Roland Park. She was a 1951 graduate of Friends School and attended the University of Delaware. In 1956, she married Hubert E. "Chuck" Rogers, and lived in Mountain Lakes, N.J., before settling in Towson and later Wiltondale.

T he state of long-term care in Maryland is strong, but it faces significant challenges. That's why the majority of nursing homes in Maryland are asking the Maryland General Assembly to raise the "quality assessment" - a tax that nursing homes pay. Sounds strange, doesn't it? Let me explain. In the skilled nursing community alone, we have a dedicated, passionate and well-trained work force of more than 32,000 employees caring for 25,000 people every day. However, we face unprecedented short-term challenges that have the potential of creating long-lasting negative consequences for older Marylanders and individuals with disabilities.

Walter Jennings Ives, a decorated Army Air Forces pilot who flew 34 missions over Germany aboard Martin B-26 Marauder bombers during World War II, died Dec. 3 of complications from a stroke at Lorien Mays Chapel nursing home. The longtime Riderwood resident was 93. Mr. Ives was born in Baltimore and raised in a rowhouse in the 2800 block of N. Calvert St. He was a graduate of Polytechnic Institute, where he played lacrosse and football. After studying mechanical engineering at Cornell University, Mr. Ives enlisted as a private in the Maryland National Guard 29th Infantry Division, 175th Regiment in 1935.

A growing backlog of requests for state medical assistance has Maryland's nursing homes picking up the tab for millions of dollars and patients facing months of uncertainty over the status of their claims. In one case, an Ellicott City nursing home did not receive a payment for a 59-year-old patient with debilitating multiple sclerosis for about a year, between December 2008 and last month. During that time, the patient, Barbara Sherman, her husband, Winston, and their elder-care lawyer repeatedly called and wrote the state Department of Human Resources.