A Call for Nursing Home Ombudsmen : Volunteers Are Desperately Needed Here to Monitor and Comfort Lonely Patients

We would like to issue a plea here to residents throughout the San Fernando, Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys for volunteers for a most worthy endeavor. They are needed to serve as long-term care ombudsmen, monitoring conditions at the 570 nursing homes and board and care facilities in the region.

As few as 20% of the elderly in these facilities have living relatives, and half of them receive no visitors at all in a given year. The ombudsmen therefore serve not only as badly needed watchdogs, but also as symbols of caring and attentiveness for people who might otherwise feel thoroughly neglected by the outside world.

The Congress ordered the states to establish long-term care ombudsman programs when it passed the Older Americans Act in 1978. In Los Angeles County, that role is filled by an agency called WISE Senior Services, and it is a daunting enterprise. There are 239 volunteers and 19 paid staffers for 54,000 nursing homes and board and care sites, or about one worker for every 209 facilities.

Volunteers are “desperately needed” in the San Fernando Valley, where there are only 32 ombudsmen for 450 facilities, according to region coordinator Gerry Romanik. In Santa Clarita, there have been too few volunteers to even begin the 36-hour training course needed to prepare future ombudsmen. At least 10 to 15 volunteers are needed to conduct training sessions. Once trained, volunteers are expected to put in four or five hours a week in visiting nursing homes or other facilities.

Those in the San Fernando, Antelope or Santa Clarita valleys who want to become ombudsmen should call either 800-334-9473 or 310-393-3618. By so doing, they would be serving a particularly vulnerable and all too often lonely population of elderly residents and others who are recovering from serious illnesses or injuries.