When I was in the General Assembly, probably in the 1970’s, there was a very, very conservative state representative from Decatur named Webber Borchers. His other claim to fame was being the second Chief Illiniwek.

Besides being very, very conservative, I shall remember one way he spent his legislative allowance.

He hired a woman to check on nursing homes in his district.

She would go in a nursing home, introduce herself as Rep. Borchers’ Legislative Assistant and ask the administrator if she could look around.

Some told her, “I don’t have to let you in.”

The reply was, “You are correct, but, if you don’t I’ll tell me boss.”

I’ll bet she wasn’t refused more than once.

She had a 10 or 12-point check list that made so much sense. I wish I could find a copy, but here are some of the questions:

• Was the water within reach of each patient?
• Was there a smell of urine?

Common sense questions. Nothing technical. The same kind of things that you would pick up if you were considering putting a parent in a nursing facility.

Picking up on Webber’s idea, I introduced a bill that would have required a toll free complaint number, plus the number and address of the owner of the nursing home be put on the front door.

The type of nursing home with Webber Borchers’ proxy visitors locally has always been the county nursing home, called Valley Hi.

If county board members walked though the facility and smell urine, you better believe they had the power to do something about it.

If things got bad enough, they could probably get the county home administrator fired.

All of this is preface to writing about the ability of patients and their relatives and friends to make complaints that might mean something under the management agreement being proposed with an outside firm.