nursing home – Representative Mike Sylvia

6th July 20226th July 2022

The Truth About Oxygen

In a letter on Tuesday, July 5, 2022 my Democrat opponent for state representative in Belmont did his best to misdirect attention away from the disasters of the Biden administration. While he throws insults at the excellent management of our award winning county nursing home, he diverts the public eye from the crisis of health care sweeping the country.

Perhaps the 300 word limit prevented him from trotting out the tired old lie about the insufficient funding for oxygen at the nursing home. To set the record straight, the county delegation sets a budget that doesn’t over-tax its citizens. It was clear in 2021 that occupancy would be reduced in the nursing home due to Covid and a shortage of nurses. The years of experience held by the executive committee paid off in recognizing an extremely fat line in the nursing home budget. While local writers tried to gin up fear of patients lacking oxygen, the reality was that we didn’t cut enough. In the end, the commissioners’ request of $49,800 for oxygen was cut to $39,000. How many residents died from lack of oxygen? Zero. At year end for 2021 only $27,000 was spent on oxygen.

There are plenty of people willing to throw false allegations around. They need not backup their bogus claims. One of the problems in politics is the lack of spine to stand up against bullies and storytellers. This is where experience comes to play; knowing the truth and standing up for the truth. Belknap county delivers quality services to its citizen without putting them in the poorhouse (which ironically was known, in years gone by, as the County Farm).

I am running for re-election to continue putting pressure on bad actors in our state and county government. Those who would prefer to have their politicians turn a blind eye to corruption have recruited a primary opponent. I ask for your support in the September 13, 2022 primary. Please mark your calendar and share with your friends.

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26th November 202126th November 2021

Another Crisis at Belknap County Nursing Home

Another crisis at the Belknap county nursing home has arisen. It must be dealt with on Monday, Thursday is too late. In a story at the Laconia Daily Sun, Michael Mortensen asked the right question, “why the commissioners were resorting to a special meeting rather than waiting for the commission’s next regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday.”

Many answers to the question are long standing issues that are well known and have been considered for years. If you are familiar with the proper method of reading the Laconia Daily Sun, you’ll know you need to sort through a bit of fluff before you find the nugget of truth. And in this case, it is this; “the requirement that all health-care workers must, by Dec. 5, be vaccinated against COVID.”

Joe Biden has demanded workers be forced to accept an experimental medical treatment and highly educated medical providers are willing to be fired rather than take the risk.

The county administration counted on these workers knuckling under to the pressure to accept the jab. Now with a week to figure out what to do the commissioners will look for a Hail Mary pass. While Biden controls the printing press and can freely (at great expenses to the citizens) throw money at problems, the county commissioners are limited in their response. They might squeeze the county taxpayers for more money; something private nursing homes can’t do (yet are forced to compete against). Or they might consider giving exemptions to those who conscientiously stand for bodily integrity and autonomy; a right of every New Hampshire citizen.

While there have been many calls for Governor Sununu to bring the legislature into a special session to address these vaccine mandates, he has chosen to ignore the brewing crisis.

Having been around the block a time or two, I won’t be surprised to read the follow-up story in the Laconia Daily Sun which blames the county delegation for the crisis.

9th July 20219th July 2021

Stop the Fear

Project Veritas has recently exposed CNN for using fear to attract viewers. It is a shameful technique used widely in media and politics. Your local ‘news’ paper uses it more than you may realize.

In a recent story about the Belknap County nursing home’s difficulty in finding nursing staff, it was made to sound as if this was an isolated problem for the county home. The reality is there is a wide spread problem in nursing in general. The problem is made worse by the easy availability of generous unemployment benefits.

As I know what is going on and I attended the commissioners’ meeting that spawned the article, I was not concerned. We have an excellent administrator at the Belknap County nursing home and the residents receive 5 star care.

A few days after the article appeared I received a call from a friend. She has a loved one residing at the nursing home. The story in the paper, as she read it, made it sound like the nursing home was going to be closed. I assured her that the nursing home is not closing and she could relax.

This was not a case of sloppy writing, it was carefully crafted to sow fear. This is shown in a more recent piece written about the county delegation investigation into spending irregularities.

Having attended the meeting from which this latest article arose, I found it odd that two references were made to oxygen in the nursing home. It was implied that there was insufficient funds available to have oxygen supplied to nursing home residents. It has nothing to do with the investigation and not a word about oxygen was spoken in the meeting. It seems only to be inserted to stoke fear of patients lacking proper care.

I immediately recognized this to be a manufactured ‘crisis,’ before I went to check the budget.

As of June 6, 2021, which covers the first 42% of the year, the budget for oxygen has spent 29%. From a budget of $39,000 only $11,266 has been spent. In fact, the estimate for the year end is that $9,000 will remain in the oxygen budget. Note that this is based on the very frugal delegation budget, the county commissioners had budgeted $49,800 for the year. What’s $20,000 between friends? Some might call it fraud.