ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Keeping the Family Together

In the uneasy meeting ground where bureaucratic regulations touch human lives, it’s safe to say that if rules are not made to be broken they at least are made to be bent. One state law governing the operation of private board-and-care homes for the elderly is a case in point.

Two sisters in Buena Park, providing each other companionship in their 90s, face separation because the state insists that one should be moved to a convalescent facility.

According to the Orange County office of the Community Care Licensing Division, Hazel Nichols is technically bedridden because she has trouble getting into and out of bed on her own. The condition of the 96-year-old is said to violate a prohibition on having bedridden people in board-and-care homes.

The state requirement obviously has its appropriate applications, and is designed no doubt to protect the elderly. However, the evaluation of Nichols as “bedridden” is questioned by Nichols herself, by her sister, Mildred Sarff, 91, by other family members and by the operators of the facility.

They note that Nichols can walk without help and is able to get into and out of bed, even though she has difficulty.

Nichols’ daughter argues sensibly for letting the two sisters remain together. “Mother wants to be here with her sister,” said Barbara Philbrook. “They’re both here by choice. They don’t want to move.”

As a result, the sisters, their family and the Sunshine Corner board-and-care home have been defying a state order that was supposed to have gone into effect Monday.

Hazel Nichols may not leap from her bed, but who among us always does? Even much younger adults have days when they get up on the wrong side--or think, as did someone who once bet on the losing team in a World Series, that he “should have stood in bed.”

Clearly, the state’s definition of bedridden needs to have a little more bounce in its springs.