Like It Is

By Francois Degraff

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 12, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450085557

Francois Degraff

My name is Francois Degraff. I am a native of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I was not able to speak English when I came to this country in 1965 from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I attended the English class for foreigners in New York University. Then I went to Community College in New York in Staten Island and received a BS in science degree. I attended Brooklyn Jewish Hospital School of Nursing and became a registered professional nurse. I have worked in New York as an RN, and then at Corral Gables Hospital in Florida. I was an RN escort for the immigration department in New York for one trip to Bamaqou, Mali. I can speak Creole, French, Spanish, and English. Haunted by the desire to be a physician, I attended the Universidad Del Noreste in Tampico Mexico and then transferred to Spartan Health Science University in Texas. I passed the ECFMG in my third year of medical school. I applied for a residency but I was not successful in the first year. I continued to work as a nurse supervisor collecting data from one long-term care facility to another long-term care facility. I attended Cuyahoga Community College to become a primary instructor preparing STNA for the job market at this time. Francois Degraff BS, RN, MD, TTT (Train the Trainer)

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Copyright © 2010 by Francois Degraff.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Biography

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to my wife, Linda, who has devoted her life to put up

with me during the years that we have been together, to my children Kathia and Cois who have spent their early years dealing with my grumpy attitude, and to my dog Nina who by her mischievousness never stops to tease me by fetching my socks wherever they may be and runs all around the house with them.

I am also indebted to America for allowing me to be in the land of the free and the brave, giving me the protection through freedom of speech telling it Like It Is!

Chapter 1

I chose this title not for the fun of it but to bring facts to the awareness

of the people about what I have seen going on during my more than twenty years of experience while working in long-term care facilities.

It was heartache to see what had occurred in some of the facilities where I had worked—as the saying goes: when you see one, you have seen all—although there could be some exceptions.

The names used in Like It Is are fictional, to thwart any repercussion or predicaments in provisions of making decisions of which home is better than another, which could bring the extinction of some long-term care facilities.

What I am going to tell the people is the truth, because I was the eyewitness to these roguish practices and no one can contest it—the truth that I am going to tell will be hard to take but the public will eventually recognize it as true.

I came to Cleveland in the 1980s. I am a registered professional nurse. I liked the atmosphere, the calm, and quietude; I said to myself, This is the place I want to be in until I go to my grave. It was not without hardship at the beginning—to recall, I used to take a bus called the RTA every morning. Although I caught the bus at the same time, and saw the same faces, no one ever uttered a word to me, not even to say hello, the irony to that. It was a cold winter day. While riding the bus, I placed my hat, that I had got from New York for a dollar, on the seat beside me and when I turned my head to pick up my hat so that I could get off the bus my hat was gone. I missed my hat, a hat that had kept my head warm; I never experienced runny eyes or rhinorrhea—a one-dollar hat that I appreciated very much for the convenience it provided to me. Perhaps this clochard who took it did not know the importance and the history of this hat, wore it once, sold it for a fix, or kept it in his back pocket. This crook, who took my hat, never thought about me catching a cold and was not concerned that I had a family to provide for. He who steals a penny from the poor causes great discomfort to the poor, and will eventually steal from himself the opportunity, without end, to be a civilized and law-abiding person. I was very upset, thinking about this person who had stolen my shit; he would never get better in life. This individual’s spirit was poor—he was the type of human being who makes the sorrow of the world.

While looking through the employment section of the local paper, I saw an ad for Whitecliff Manor, in search of registered nurses. The owner,