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People seeking comfort toward life's end: New residential care facility opens in city
(Los Banos Enterprise Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Aug. 8--A few years ago, Mercedes Tatel came from San Jose to Los Banos to buy a house.
The home wasn't for her.
"When we came here to Los Banos there was nothing here. We found out there are not so many places that take care of the old people. There's at least three, but not as many as we have in San Jose," Tatel, 58, said. "I decided to buy this house and decided let's do it."
Tatel has remodeled--knocked out a door here, put in a window there--and has turned the home into a residential care facility.
She and her husband, Edwin, recently opened Holy Spirit Care on Langley Court. The facility can accommodate up to five non-ambulatory patients and one person under hospice care.
"This is like a step down between a nursing home and a hospital," Mercedes Tatel said. "People usually don't want to go to a nursing home, which is sometimes a stigma. So as much as they can still do some things for themselves they stay in facilities like this."
Tatel's facility offers the elderly who are sick some of the comforts they may have enjoyed at home. There's a garden out back where tomatoes and eggplant are grown, the opportunity to challenge roommates or staff at chess, bingo or other games and cable television in each room.
The garage of the home has been converted into a temperature-controlled meeting room where residents can visit with family.
The facility does not accept Alzheimer's patients or people suffering from dementia.
Mercedes Tatel, who has been a registered nurse for the past 34 years, said she's seeing a trend of people going to the hospital later in their illnesses than used to be the case.
"Nowadays insurance is not going to keep you in the hospital. The old people now who go in are very, very sick and as soon as there's a window they discharge them," she said.
Mercedes Tatel said usually when the elderly get sent home their families are not prepared to take care of them. She said that's when her business can help and sometimes patients are able to go back home.
But those are the happy instances.
Many other residential care patients are terminal. Their loved ones end up with a choice to make toward the end, have your relative die at home or in the facility.
Edwin Tatel said many times the family does not want their loved one moved.
"It will be a hassle moving them in that kind of state," Edwin Tatel said. "So that's why it would be more advantageous to keep them here and we work with the hospice."
Holy Spirit Care has two doctors on call. Medicines are administered and patients are monitored for side effects at the facility. Patients are also escorted to doctors appointments.
Anesthesiologist Susan Abiog is on staff atthe facility. She said she's been in many residential care facilities through the years and Holy Spirit Care is "the tops."
Abiog said many other facilities she's visited aren't clean.
Mercedes Tatel said being clean is one of the ways you get the trust of the patient's family.
"They have to see that the place is clean and the old people are served with dignity," she said. "It takes a while to trust people, especially if you're not from here."
Enterprise staff writer Corey Pride can be reached at 388-6563 or cpride@losbanosenterprise.com
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Copyright (c) 2008, Los Banos Enterprise, Calif.
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