Nursery monitor not effective

I came to this nursing home at the end of August. Back then, the maintenance man said the Breath Call (breath activated) call light wouldn't work with their old-style, flip switch call light system. Nevertheless, my sister and I both searched for adapters for the breath activated call light. Janice found some and I emailed them to the maintenance man. But, he kept telling me an adapter would not work with the system.

My sister bought a nursery monitor and in the beginning it seemed to work. But, I wondered if it would work long term. Nursing homes are busy places and nursery monitor senders and receivers can get dropped, and broken. That had happened at two previous nursing homes.

Gradually, the aides and nurses seemed to get slower answering the nursery monitor. I wondered if they could hear it. The receiver unit has to be recharged and then can be unplugged until it loses its charge. I knew if the receiver unit was being left at the nurses station, it would be difficult for the aides to hear me. A discharged battery would make it unusable. Then, they would have to plug it in. A nursery monitor with batteries would have been preferable and easier to use.

It seems almost impossible for the aides here to answer call lights within fifteen minutes. Expecting nursing home residents to wait longer than that concerns me. Some residents are on the Rehab Unit and and have just left the hospital after surgery, stroke, heart attack, cancer, or other illness. Some need quite a bit of care at least at first.

I know I was frustrated right after I was set up to sleep because I couldn't put my call light on to get an aide to adjust me, or whatever was bothering me. I started ignoring what was bothering me, an itch here, a too tight splint strap there. I hate to run aides back and forth. But nightly discomforts have a way of escalating. Then, the too tight splint caused middle of the night pain, I blamed myself for not having a usable call light to to get some help. Ignoring something that was uncomfortable, seemed so wrong in so many ways. It was like I'd lost my freedom.

I've been here for a little over five weeks. I now wonder if the aides can hear me on that nursery monitor.

I hope the facility maintenance man can rig my Breath Call so I can use it.