how'd the walk go?

Doctor's orders for a walk, on the books, in the chart for designated time today

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1. upon arrival a staff says "i've been telling her to get ready all morning".



i observe Linds in socks, no coat and notice her locker/closet key is not on the string around her neck. i ask her where her key is so she can get to her closet to get ready for the walk.

2. same staff walks into visiting room, saying the key was missing, someone found it and voila! here it is.

i hold out the string with the closet key on it and Linds leans her head forward for me to place it around her neck. we prompt her again, verbally and with written note to:

a. get coat
b. gets shoes
c. get ready to go out on the walk

after 90 minutes of Linds appearing to be anxious, pacing and not getting her shoes and coat, we decide to give her a heads up that we will be leaving soon, because in fact the designated outing time was going to run out.

3. 20 minutes left until walk outing pass expires, and i was told that in fact her coat was in the laundry.

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How to get someone like Lindsay ready for an outing 101

1. make sure when you prompt her to get ready she actually has the key to her closet and the items to put on such as shoes or the coat, other wise what was the point?

Lindsay, is sporadically speaking for the first time in years, is presenting predominantly as autistic, has been acknowledged by the team, and the on duty staff has seemed to not been briefed on how to get a complex patient such as Lindsay ready for a doctored ordered outing. it fell apart, because too much was expected of Lindsay, prompting her to get ready without a key to her locker and knowing the coat was in the laundry?

Upon arrival if i was told the coat was in the laundry I could have driven to a drug store and bought a cheap jacket, but that is not the point. How to get your patient ready for a doctor's orders outing with the patient/client needs met with appropriate methods.

The coat is in the laundry, i'm seriously shaking my head now, because we prompted Linds for 90 freaking minutes to go get her coat on and it wasn't even a possibility.

That, is undermining a very big day. what the hell. again, expecting a statef funded institution to do the impossible, for 500$ a day or so charge per patient.

Pay me, that's right, pay me $500 dollars a day, designate my house as a "housing", give me staff, respite and all of my daughter's needs met, plus the doctors, case manager, driving to appointments, to blood draws--oh wait, i already did that! she needs support, she is in the wrong system, she is stuck in a locked mental hospital as a disabled individual, come on, let's keep moving this mountain, just put on your thinking caps before going to work, dust off the license you earned to work out on the floor, oh wait is that required for hiring? i digress, this is a place for me to rant, so be it.

she deserves and has the rights to services and has for a very long time, if for example this is how it works, i took her home she loses all services and housing. i think she deserves a chance at independent living, and many people cannot imagine what i do for her, is advocate as a mother. she is their client, and she needs a voice.