Tampico Healthcare Center

Elizabeth

My husband has been in Tampico Center for a month now. It's horrible. He hadn't had a bath in 11 days. When he lost the ability to feed himself, he kept telling them, 'I can't feed myself. I'm just spilling food all over.' It took them five days to put him on a feeding plan, and that was only after I went in and told them that this was not acceptable. So as far as his care goes, it's horrible, which is the only way I can describe it. My husband is a bedridden patient in hospice care because he can do nothing for himself. He is 99% disabled. His room is not very clean. The staff is really good, but it's just that I have to go and say to them, 'He needs a bath.' It's like they don't see the needs as they're developing. If there were another VA nursing home close, I would probably be moving him. Unfortunately, there's no nursing home close to where we want to be near our son, so I'm just going to be here to make sure he is being taken care of. I think being proactive in terms of the patient's needs is what they need to improve. I asked if there was a schedule for giving a bath, and they looked it up, and they said my husband is on Saturday and Wednesday, and I said, 'So how did he go 11 days with no baths?' And they had no answer. It's kind of like, if you go up and you complain, they get right on it, but you shouldn't have to go up and complain about stuff like that.