My mother has been in a nursing home for almost 1.5 years. When she first entered her nursing home, she was able to walk to and from her room to the nursing home cafeteria three times a day. Over time, she lost her mobility and now prefers to stay in her room because even with a walker or wheel chair, she is not strong enough to walk the 10 minutes it takes to the cafeteria.

So, here's where the nurse retaliation part comes in. I have followed the nursing home's policies for having a hold placed on my mother's meal plan, when I want to bring her lunch or dinner to her room to eat with her, to keep her company. It's especially good for her on holidays like Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

The procedure is: contact the nurses at the nursing station, ask them to send an email to the kitchen staff for the date and meal that should be held (i.e. not delivered to the resident's room). Each time I have followed this procedure, the nursing staff at my mother's nursing home have failed.

About five times now, I've arrived with a homemade meal only to see my mother eating at her table in her room, from the lunch or dinner tray that the aides brought from the kitchen. And, each time I've complained to the Health Director and to the nurses, asking them to correct their "so called" communication problem between the nursing station and the kitchen when I make these homemade meal/hold meal plan requests. And each time, I'm assured the problem will be fixed.

The retaliation part comes after I had a nurse fired for inappropriate behavior while on duty. It was my mother's birthday and I had asked the day before to have her dinner held so I could bring her her favorite homemade meal. When I arrived, again, my mother was eating from her meal tray in her room, instead of waiting for me to bring her homemade meal. The nurse at the nursing station shouted to me, "Death is more important than food orders! I had a death in my family. I don't have time for your nonsense." So, I complained and she was fired (or so I was told, I don't have any proof other than the Executive Director's verbal promise).

If you work in healthcare, as a nurse or an aide, you are supposed to follow your building's procedures and policies regardless of what's happened to you in your personal life.

That happened a few months ago. Since then, my attempts to bring more meals have been thwarted by the on-duty nurse as a form of retaliation (I believe) for complaining about that nurse.

Tonight was the last straw. It was Thanksgiving. The day before I asked the nurse on duty to email the kitchen staff to hold my mother's meal so I could bring over some homemade Thanksgiving dinner for her, which she was thrilled about. The nurse even called me today on Thanksgiving to reconfirm that she had notified the kitchen staff. Well, apparently, the kitchen staff claim she never notified them because an aide brought my mother her dinner tray to her room.

I brought the dinner tray to the nursing station and the nurse refused to come out. So I stood there. One of the aids came over and called me a *****, and tried to punch me, and the on-duty kitchen chef had to grab the aide and hold her back. I walked back to my mother's room, had our homemade Thanksgiving dinner, called some relatives, then as she sat and watched tv, i emailed the Health Director and Executive Director and relayed how their nurse retaliated for not following through on her job's tasks, and how the aide tried to beat me up and called me a *****.

Then I called my state's ombudsman and started a complaint against the nursing home and the Health Director, the Nurse, and the Executive Director. I had found out from my mother that the kitchen also had not been delivering her breakfast and lunch to her, because they are pissed that they have to walk her meal trays so far.

So, I did a telephone complaint with the Dept. of Human Services tonight. My hope is that the County will step in and fix this horrible nursing home's passive aggressive nursing staff.

I am really upset that this continues to be a problem. If we weren't in this stupid pandemic, I'd be able to take her out of that hellhole, for restaurant visits instead and wouldn't have to deal with the stupid nursing staff and aides always ****ing up my requests with no follow-up or consequences except for that nurse being fired.

I don't know if any other caregivers here can relate to the nonsense that nursing homes get away with. I just want my mom to be safe at her nursing home. I can't remove her b/c she is on the elderly waiver and the waiting list for those beds is long at every nursing home.

Even if I had just set down the dinner tray tonight outside of my mother's room, that nurse and that aide still would have retaliated against me. I still would have emailed the Health Director and Executive Director and I still would have called the State Ombudsman to file a complaint against my mother's nursing home. I'm just fed up.