Tender Care South residents struggle with closing

Tendercare South Closing I become increasingly outraged, by the day, as I hear more information about the closing of Tendercare South.  I can confirm, first hand, that Quality of Care issues in the facility have lead to it’s federally mandated closure.  The residents and families, however, should be aware of the underlying cause of these issues.  The Healthcare Association of Michigan as made statememtns eluding to the deficiencies at Tendercare South being “Employee Errors, and not mismanagement by Tendercare.”  I can only imagine that the current staff working diligently to cooperate with corporate and state employees would find these comments not only offensive, but irresponsible.  The corporation has taken NO responsibility for the deficiencies and continues to make statements to ensure the publicity of the facility’s closing does not affect business in their other 31 facilities.  The driving force behind Tendercare Incorporated is MONEY!  If you investigate, you will find that the number of Corporate Employees far outnumber any other long term care organization in the state.  The company is micro-managed to the point that even having a dozen corporate staff in the building at the time of the facility’s 2nd re-visit by the Department of Community Health didn’t foster the changes necessary to bring the facility into compliance.  Policies were often created that were “cost-effective”, but not in the best interest of the ill and elderly individuals residing at the facility.  Terdercare Incorporated has a reputation for cutting direct care staff to unsafe levels, yet continuing to finance enough corporate employees to outnumber the resident capacity of Tendercare South!  These cost-control measures were continually justified as being compliant with state and federal guidelines, however, ratios of direct care staff to residents always included management staff that actually provided NO hands-on care.  Concerns raised by the community about other Tendercare facilities are legitimate, as the facilities are governed by the same corporation and financially driven policies.  I have been part of “Profit & Loss” meetings for Tendercare and strongly feel the “loss” they refer to is much less unfortunate than the loss the dedicated staff and dependant residents of Tendercare South are feeling as they are forced to live and work in new environments.  If staff would have been given the “tools” to effectively provide the care the residents deserved, the outcome would surely be different.  Large numbers of skilled nurses, nursing assistants and other staff have sacrificed for the corporation trying to provide quality care and made the decision to leave because of the ethical dilemma working there posed.  I hope the residents and community reallize that the “Tendercare South” staff loved and cared for them.  I know of many staff members who remain there now trying to ease the transition for the residents and families.  Lets see how the corporation refers to those individuals.  Will they still blame those dedicated employees by referring to them as “Employee Errors!?”