Someone who volunteers to be a long-term care ombudsman can play a crucial role in the life of people in residential care facilities.
An ombudsman is the eyes and ears — and, often, the nose — keeping tabs on the proper treatment of those who may have no one else to advocate for them. Most long-term care residents are elderly or frail.
Under state law, an ombudsman has the authority to routinely go unannounced into nursing homes, assisted living centers and smaller six-bed homes. They also respond to complaints called into the local ombudsman’s office.
But in Riverside County, there are only 12 volunteers to help a paid staff of nine monitor about 520 licensed facilities scattered across a geographic area of more than 7,000 square miles.
With about 15,000 residents in long-term care, that’s nowhere near enough volunteers to see to their well being, say those who run the Riverside County Ombudsman Program.
One facility in Blythe is visited by a volunteer who makes a three-hour trip once a month.
It’s impossible to make more frequent visits when so few have to cover such long distances, as dedicated as they might be.
“We’re barely getting about 65 percent (of facilities) covered on a monthly basis with unannounced visits,” said Anita Johnson, the program manager who oversees recruitment and retention of volunteers. “We would like to be able to go weekly.”
Ideally, the ombudsman office would like to have 40 to 50 volunteers to call on — a number once reached in the 1990’s.
Now, the program is under different management and seeks to at least double the number of volunteers in the immediate future — a pressing need with Riverside County projecting a nearly 250 percent increase in its elderly population between 2010 and 2060, according to the state Office on Aging.
There is also a growing number of younger people in care with behavioral and mental health issues.
“A lot of them don’t have family that visit or are around,” Debbie Aguilera, ombudsman regional coordinator in Hemet, said of the long-term care residents. “Some do; but most don’t. We are able to help people on a daily basis, even at a first meeting.”
New management
The Council on Aging – Southern California began overseeing the Riverside County Ombudsman Program in September 2017, after the Riverside County Office on Aging awarded the organization a three-year contract. Prior to that, the nonprofit Community Connect ran the program for about 20 years.
Known as the Council on Aging – Orange County until a name change in 2016 to reflect expanded services to Riverside and San Bernardino counties, the organization operates the ombudsman program in Orange County, where 80 volunteers monitor 994 facilities.
The Council on Aging spent much of the past year on structural issues within the Riverside program, including adding an office in Palm Desert.
The budget for the second year of its contract with the Office on Aging is $413,912. The program also gets $15,000 each in grant funds from Hemet, Corona and Palm Springs, and $10,000 from Palm Desert to provide services specific to those communities.
Some of the current Riverside County volunteers have put in more than a decade of service, including Paula Dotseth, 13 years, and Norma Shearer, 26 years, who assist the three-person ombudsman staff in Hemet that covers five communities in south Riverside County, along with parts of the cities of Riverside, Calimesa, Banning and Beaumont.
“I’m very blessed to have the people that I do have,” Aguilera said.
But, she added, “We really, really need volunteers.”
Wrongs they see
From October 2017 to September 2018, the Riverside County team paid 1,587 unannounced visits and opened 372 cases for investigation, according to Libby Anderson, director of the Council on Aging’s ombudsman program.
Physical abuse was the top issue in the six-bed and larger assisted living homes, Anderson said. In skilled nursing facilities, the chief complaints involved poor care.
The ombudsman program works in tandem with the state’s Community Care Licensing division that regulates assisted living and six-bed facilities, and the state Dept. of Health, which oversees skilled nursing facilities.
Johnson, in charge of ombudsman recruitment, said the most effective volunteers cultivate relationships with both residents and staff at long-term care facilities: “They know that place inside and out so they can develop an eye for things.”
Learn more
To find out about the Council on Aging – Southern California ombudsman program, go to coasc.org/programs. To volunteer, contact Anita Johnson at 833-772-6624 or by email at ajohnson@ombirs.org.
