{"id":8973,"date":"2019-07-24T11:52:48","date_gmt":"2019-07-24T16:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/ost-nursing-home-grows\/"},"modified":"2019-07-24T11:52:50","modified_gmt":"2019-07-24T16:52:50","slug":"ost-nursing-home-grows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/ost-nursing-home-grows\/","title":{"rendered":"OST Nursing Home grows"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Oglala Sioux Lakota Nursing Home will open a new 12 bed memory wing in January of 2020.
(Photo by James Giago Davies)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

WHITE CLAY\u2014 In January of 2020 the Oglala Sioux Tribe Nursing Home located in White Clay, Nebraska, will open a new 12-bed memory wing. This will bring the total bed capacity for the facility to about 70, and allow the Tribe to care for tribal members with memory issues, close to home.<\/p>\n

For almost half a century, the Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) struggled to get a tribal nursing facility, but failed in the face of a South Dakota moratorium on the number of facilities allowed. About 15 years ago, the foundational efforts to bring about the current OST began with current board president Kathy Janis, tribal attorney Mario Gonzalez and tribal financial officer Gary Russ. Richard Rangel and Associates designed a beautiful building, and the professional management organization run by Ron Ross, Native American Health Management, was hired to manage the facility.<\/p>\n

The nursing home was constructed on tribal land just south of the Nebraska border, allowing the Tribe to get around the South Dakota moratorium and create a state-of-the-art facility working with the state of Nebraska.<\/p>\n

Securing the funding to operate the facility became possible because of CPE\u2019s, certified public expenditures. Under federal rules and regulations, health care provider organizations can participate in CPE programs. In a CPE, a state is able to certify unreimbursed Medicaid eligible costs expended by the public health care organization and draw down the applicable federal Medicaid matching funds associated with those costs. Ross was an expert when it came to CPE\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice to have his company managing because they help us out a lot,\u201d said Gonzalez.\u00a0 \u201cRon Ross\u2019s knowledge of the CPE payments (made a difference), being the former treasurer of the state of Nebraska.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so happy that this is moving forward,\u201d Janis said. \u201cWe worked on it for a long time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s gone way beyond what we started. With the help of elders, with the help of prayer, with the help of dedicated persons that were on the board, we are where we are now, and we are doing good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Janis is particularly happy about the help the state of Nebraska provided: \u201cThey bent over backwards to help us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interim Facility Manager, Tiffany Shangreaux said, \u201c\u201cI have been in other nursing homes but this place is more like a home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited for the Oglala Sioux Tribe,\u201d Ross said. \u201cBecause we\u2019re now going to be be able to meet some of the tribal member needs we weren\u2019t able to meet in the past, in particular folks who have memory care issues, and there are some tribal members that we were not able to admit because we just couldn\u2019t meet their needs in a normal nursing home.\u201d<\/p>\n

This prompted the memory wing expansion, and the facility designed to facilitate just such an addition.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now with this new wing that\u2019s being built,\u201d Ross said, \u201cwe\u2019ll be able to meet those needs. We\u2019re gonna have twelve private rooms, and they\u2019ll have their own staff, they\u2019ll have their own courtyard, and the furnishing and the environment there will assist people whether they have Alzheimer\u2019s or some other form of dementia. This is just a service that the nursing home\u2019s gonna be able to provide. Were looking forward to it and we should have it up and going here in a few months.\u201d<\/p>\n

The specifics of the memory wing took careful consideration, and much thought went into details to guarantee the safety of the residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably one of the biggest difference is it\u2019s a locked unit,\u201d Ross said. \u201cYou need to have a locked unit because whether it\u2019s really hot outside, and they could get out and get dehydrated, or whether its winter and its freezing outside, and so a locked unit is very important for a memory care because a lot of times these folks just don\u2019t have the functionality to know the weather, know what\u2019s good for them, it\u2019s just a part of the disease process.\u201d<\/p>\n

To provide quality care for memory wing residents, staff will have to be trained specifically for that purpose. Ross: \u201cWe do special training so (employees) can act and react to help the residents.\u201d<\/p>\n

The appearance, structure and furnishing of the wing must also take the memory issues of residents into account. Ross explains some of those alterations: \u201cThe colors are more muted, not so vibrant, because sometimes bold colors can set people off, and then the furnishings are probably just a little bit more solid so that they don\u2019t push them over or something, and then the other thing that we do is, we put memory boxes around. We try to find things that remind them of their childhood so that they can have good memories. A lot of times, those people that have memory care problems, it\u2019s more the newer memories that they are having problems with, and yet they can tell you what happened to them when they were ten years old, so we\u2019re just trying to bring back some of the good memories.\u201d<\/p>\n

In designing the wing, it had to be large enough to accomplish care objectives, but small enough so the residents won\u2019t feel alarmed. Ross: \u201cOne of the things about a memory care unit, is you want to have it small so it\u2019s not so disruptive and people get noisy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Managing nursing homes across the country, Ross has a comprehensive perspective where the OST Nursing Home fits into the quality care spectrum: \u201cThe facility has met everybody\u2019s expectations. One of the things that even expanded on that, is the employment opportunities that we have for many tribal members, so we not only take care of their grandparents, but we\u2019re in a position to take care of the grandkids by offering them good salaries and good benefits, and the residents can be taken care of by their own families, and so that has been a really good thing. More and more of the tribal members become CNAs (certified nursing assistants). Almost any position in the facility, these folks can be trained to do, and then if they wanna go off and become an LPN or an RN, we have employment opportunities for them, too. So, it\u2019s just been a great deal for the residents as well as the workforce. There\u2019s only about 18 tribal nursing homes across the United States, at our last count, and we are probably the newest facility and when you take a look at our facility compared to others, this facility does a great job taking care of residents, the environments the residents live in, how close it is to the workforce, it\u2019s definitely in the top five units.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually most of us will have an elderly loved one requiring care, and Ross detailed the process whereby the community can utilize the services of the OST Nursing Home: \u201cI would like to invite people, when it comes time that they know that one of their loved ones is either in the need of nursing homes or memory care, that they stop by and visit with the administrator, and tell them about the situation. Because there are people on staff at the facility, social services, admissions coordinators, the director of nurses, the administrator, and they can all help folks learn how to access programs. (If) they can\u2019t afford it on their own, there\u2019s ways we can help them access the funds to live there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nowhere in South Dakota is there a facility with better aesthetics, management, staffing or accessibility than the OST Nursing Home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe criticize each other, and some other tribes look down on us for various reasons,\u201d Gonzalez said, \u201cbut we have a lot to be proud of. What other tribe has a facility like this?\u201d<\/p>\n

(James Giago Davies is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota tribe. He can be reached at skindiesel@msn.com<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Oglala Sioux Lakota Nursing Home will open a new 12 bed memory wing in January of 2020.(Photo by James Giago Davies) WHITE CLAY\u2014 In January of 2020 the Oglala Sioux Tribe Nursing Home located in White Clay, Nebraska, will open a new 12-bed memory wing. This will bring the <\/p>\n

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Shared by Native Sun News Today<\/a> July 24, 2019<\/p>\n

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