John Ocasio-Rodham Nolte@NolteNC
Last week, we had to move my mom out of assisted living and into specialized care… In the middle of this exhausting move, the following happened.
This is an actual conversation I had with my mother’s new nursing home…
NURSING HOME LADY: You can’t remove our furniture. It has to stay in your mom’s room.
***She didn’t even introduce herself, and behind her was another sour-faced lady.
ME: What?
NHL: Our furniture has to stay in the room. It’s fire-rated. It meets the fire code. Removing it violates the fire code.
ME: So I have to throw all my mom’s furniture out?
NHL: No, her furniture can stay, but you must keep ours in the room because of fire regulations.
ME: That doesn’t make any sense. How does fire-rated furniture make the room any safer inside the room as opposed to not in the room at all?
NHL: What do you mean?
ME: Unless your furniture has sprinklers built into it, how does removing it make my mom’s room less safe?
NHL: Let’s talk to the administrator.
***Now I’m marched down to the administrator’s office. Now it’s three against one. The administrator does not introduce herself.
ADMINISTRATOR LADY: You can’t remove our furniture from your mother’s room. It’s fire-rated.
ME: I understand that, and if you tell me my mom’s furniture is flammable, I’ll remove it.
ADMIN LADY: You can leave your mom’s furniture in there. It’s fine. You just can’t remove ours.
ME: But there’s no room for my mom’s stuff if I keep your furniture.
ADMIN LADY: We have no place to store it. It has to stay in the room.
ME: So it’s not a fire code issue, it’s a storage issue.
ADMIN LADY: That room is not for longterm residents who bring their own furniture. It’s for short-term rehab patients. That’s why it’s set up like a hotel room with everything in it.
ME: Then why did you put my longterm-resident mother in a short-term room?
ADMIN LADY: We didn’t have anyplace else to put her. One of our wings has been shut down.
ME: You have an entire wing of rooms that’s empty, that’s not being used?
ADMIN LADY: Yes.
ME: Well, that sounds like a good place to store some furniture.
ADMIN LADY: We can’t. We intend to open it someday.
ME: Okay, then it sounds like a good place to store some furniture until someday.
ADMIN LADY: I’m trying to work with you here.
ME: I don’t think you are.
ADMIN LADY: We have no place to store extra furniture.
ME: You have plenty of room. There are three big gathering spaces just in my mom's wing, places where an added this or that would not even be noticed. Listen, I understand a fire code issue, but we now know this isn’t about that. What it is about is a lack of flexibility and imagination. And over what—three chairs and two tables? Okay, how does this sound? I’ll buy the furniture from you.
ADMIN LADY: Buy it?
ME: Then you don’t have to store it. I’ll pay you whatever it will cost to replace it.
ADMIN LADY: What would you do with it?
ME: Well, what I do with my furniture is my business, but just to enjoy the irony, I’d probably burn it.
NHL: We are trying to work with you.
ME: No, you’re not.
ADMIN LADY: We are.
ME: My mom is going to die here—in that room. She still recognizes her belongings, and I want her surrounded by those things. I don’t want her dying in your Motel 6.
ADMIN LADY: We understand.
ME: Someone who understood would find room for three chairs and two tables.
***At this point, they gave in. And in the week since, they have taken superb care of my mother. Despite an unfriendly start, the decision to move her was a good one.
