{"id":88531,"date":"2018-02-13T01:31:02","date_gmt":"2018-02-13T06:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=88531"},"modified":"2018-02-11T18:17:45","modified_gmt":"2018-02-11T23:17:45","slug":"letter-why-i-became-a-certified-ombudsman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=88531","title":{"rendered":"LETTER: Why I became a certified ombudsman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"To the Editor:<\/em><\/p>\n

I am often asked why I decided to become a certified ombudsman, nursing home resident advocate, after a long professional career as an art historian. I answer that my work as a volunteer ombudsman is one of the most rewarding activities of my life. For the last four years, I have met people from all walks of life, who, through age, illness or a combination of both, are now living the last years of their lives in a confined space in a nursing home, where their mobility is often impaired, their day to day hours are constructed by others, and the accumulation of their lives is stuffed into a tiny room shared with a complete stranger.<\/p>\n

I will admit that I entered this new volunteer experience with fear and trepidation, as, not being a particularly outgoing person, I worried about how I would ever gain the trust of the elderly, the sick or those with dementia symptoms. After my tentative first steps visiting, talking, and making connections, I suddenly realized that the \u201cjob\u201d was not just about addressing complaints, but was about making\u00a0friends and of developing a strong admiration for people whose lives differed so greatly from my own.<\/p>\n

Although all problems that occur in nursing homes cannot be solved, being an ombudsman means always being concerned about the resident\u2019s quality of life. It means developing trust between me, the residents, the staff and the administration. Bringing smiles to people, who often feel that their lives are out of their control, can make all the difference to their day. I approach each visit expecting new situations and new challenges, but I\u2019m always reminded of the resident who told a newcomer: if you have a problem, just turn to her\u2014she gets results.<\/p>\n

Learning to navigate the complex role of the ombudsman has opened me up to a variety of experiences that are often exhilarating, but can also be tinged with sadness\u2014these are life and death situations\u2014nobody wants to die in a nursing home, so making their last journey as special and rewarding as possible is a great honor and I am enriched by the opportunity.<\/p>\n

Fiona Dejardin,\u00a0NYS Long Term Care Ombudsman Volunteer Advocate<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To the Editor: I am often asked why I decided to become a certified ombudsman, nursing home resident advocate, after a long professional career as an art historian. I answer that my work as a volunteer ombudsman is one of the most rewarding activities of my life. For the last four years, I have met […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23810,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellbeing","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-n1V","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/letter-to-editor.gif?fit=342%2C248&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}