Here we go again.  This time, Bakersfield California elderly care facility Glenwood Gardens is front and center in the middle of controversy.  Apparently, California law does not require elderly care facilities to offer CPR to dying residents.  Basically, the residents are nothing more than a hotel that does not have the customer service acumen to even provide, or find, assistance for dying patrons.  Glenwood employees apparently love this law and take their analogous employee policies very seriously.  On February 26, 2013, a nurse at Glenwood Gardens decided it was more important to follow company policy than to save, or find someone willing to try and save, a dying 87 year old resident that was in desperate need of CPR.  The resident died, the nurse kept her job.  For this facility, it seems that is the natural order of things.  

In this situation, the nurse called 911 to alert them about the resident having difficulty breathing.  The company policy advises employees to wait until emergency medical personnel arrive to assist residents.  In this situation, the resident was in dire need of CPR or else she would die.  Due to the urgency of the situation, the 911 operator pleaded with the nurse to assist the lady.  The nurse refused.  The 911 operator, trying to use a little ingenuity, even asked if there were others who could assist.  The nurse indicated she could not allow other senior citizens in the facility to assist.  Apparently, this too was against policy.  Not giving up, the 911 operator pleaded with the nurse to see if "anyone"  could help...perhaps even a gardener, a janitor, a passerby, a citizen, or any other person.  The nurse, seemingly without even checking, stated that no one was available to assist.  The 911 operator said the lady would die without help.  The nurse acknowledged she was aware of this.  After all, she is a nurse...a nurse who cares more about her job than human life.  The nurse found no one to help and allowed the lady to die.

It seems odd than senior citizens should be allowed to go to senior citizen centers and simply be allowed to die without even the simplest effort to revive them.  If a hotel told me they would accept my money but they would let me die if I needed CPR, I would find another place to stay.  I would feel the same about a senior center.  I hope residents at Glenwood and similar centers reconsider staying at the facility.  I also hope Glenwood reconsiders their policy to not provide CPR to residents, and fires any employee that simply stands around and lets people die.