Clemons insists that both times she was supposedly found to be in violation of the smoking ban, she was on public property, once on the city sidewalk just beyond the Aspen Meadow campus, and then actually in the street beyond the sidewalk on Saturday, when she is said to have committed the violation that resulted in her eviction notice. “I was between two parked cars because I didn’t want to get hit,” she said. “I was trying to do the right thing.”
Home evicts 75-year- old amputee, smoker
May 11, 2006
By ED KEMMICK
Of The Gazette Staff
By ED KEMMICK
Of The Gazette Staff
Besides being bad for your health, smoking can get you evicted from your home. That was the lesson learned Monday by JoAnn Clemons, a 75-year-old woman who had a leg amputated last August.
Since then, home for Clemons has been the Aspen Meadows Retirement Community at 3155 Ave. C, owned and operated by Billings Clinic.
She was informed by letter on Monday that she is being evicted for violations of Aspen Meadows’ nonsmoking policy, which prohibits smoking anywhere on campus, including the driveway, parking lot and interior sidewalks. She was told to clear out by June 7.
Clemons insists that both times she was supposedly found to be in violation of the smoking ban, she was on public property, once on the city sidewalk just beyond the Aspen Meadow campus, and then actually in the street beyond the sidewalk on Saturday, when she is said to have committed the violation that resulted in her eviction notice. “I was between two parked cars because I didn’t want to get hit,” she said. “I was trying to do the right thing.”
Anne Gonzalez, director of continuing care services at Aspen Meadows, signed Clemons’ eviction notice. Gonzalez said Wednesday, in a conference call that included Jim Duncan, director of development for Billings Clinic, that she was prohibited by federal law from commenting specifically about any resident of Aspen Meadows.
She did say, in general, that no one would have been reprimanded for smoking on the public sidewalk or the street, both of which are permitted. Duncan said no action would have been taken unless there had been a “clear violation of policy.”
Billings Clinic and St. Vincent Healthcare put campuswide indoor and outdoor smoking bans in place at all their properties in mid-November. Gonzalez said Aspen Meadows, which has always prohibited smoking in rooms, enacted the campuswide ban a little earlier, in August.
Under that policy, no one can smoke on campus, and residents are not allowed to have cigarettes, lighters or matches in their rooms. They are to leave smoking materials at the nursing station, then check out one cigarette and a lighter or matches when they go out to smoke, returning the lighter or matches upon re-entering the building.
“I can say that smoking and fire present one of the greatest dangers to a long-term care center that there is,” Gonzalez said. Besides all the health problems suffered by residents and the presence of oxygen bottles, Duncan said, some residents have Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia, and if allowed to have matches or lighters they could present a danger to themselves and others, or they could leave the materials lying around where others would find them.
Gonzalez said that when there is an allegation of any kind of wrongdoing on the part of a resident, a thorough investigation is conducted, and the violations would have to be documented.
“We don’t go through the process of discharge … if they haven’t violated policy,” Duncan said.
“And if there isn’t evidence to that,” Gonzalez added.
The eviction notice informed Clemons that “On Saturday, May 6, 2006, you were observed by staff to be smoking on the Aspen Meadows premises.” It also says the social services staff can assist Clemons with “discharge planning,” and that if she has any questions or concerns about the action, she could call Kathy Chaffee, the Yellowstone County ombudsman, or request a fair hearing through the state Department of Public Health and Human Services.
Clemons said she doesn’t know what she’ll do.
“I could call my attorney in Livingston, but that would cost me more than a pack of cigarettes, wouldn’t it?”
Clemons said she used to smoke pretty heavily, but when she started having health problems in March 2005, she cut way back.
“I don’t smoke but maybe one cigarette a week,” she said. “I am not addicted to cigarettes. I smoke to relax.”
After being reprimanded several weeks ago for smoking on the sidewalk, she said, she was careful to smoke in the street. As she tells it, she was wheeling back to Aspen Meadows on Saturday, nearing the side door leading to her room, when she was confronted by an employee who asked her if she’d been smoking. Clemons said she said yes, and the woman went inside. Clemons said the next thing she knew, she was being evicted.
Clemons entered Aspen Meadows last August, after falling down in her Livingston apartment. Her daughter, Teresa Patterson, said her mother apparently lay on the floor all night, and in trying to crawl around, re-injured her legs, which had been operated on to relieve her of vascular problems. In doing so, Patterson said, she severely damaged her right leg.
She was taken from Livingston to Billings, where she underwent surgery to amputate the leg. After her discharge, she went into Aspen Meadows, initially in a unit where she received intensive care and then into a skilled-nursing unit. Patterson said her mother applied in November to move into Aspen Meadows’ assisted-living unit and was still on the waiting list when the eviction notice went out on Monday.
Paterson said she thinks her mother may be facing eviction because she had complained about Aspen Meadows and can be “pretty ornery at times.”
“I think they’re trying to get rid of her,” she said. If her mother does complain and create some waves, she said, it’s only because she is dealing with depression and still trying to get over the loss of her leg.
Gonzalez said only one other resident has been evicted for violating Aspen Meadows’ smoking policy in the three years she has been there.
On Tuesday, after she spoke with a reporter outside the facility, Clemons said nurses at the front desk asked her on her return if she was carrying cigarettes and a lighter. When she said yes, she was asked to surrender them, as per regulations.
Clemons later said she knew of the rule prohibiting residents from keeping smoking materials in their rooms, but for months she’d been doing so and going out to smoke and nobody asked her during all that time to give up her cigarettes and lighter.
“I’m a stubborn old gal, ain’t I?” she said. “I’m pitiful when it comes to people telling me what to do.”
Clemons, who is covered by Medicare, said her children have been looking for a new assisted-living center in Bozeman, but she’d prefer to stay in Billings, which she has grown to like.
“I keep saying it’s funny,” she said of her situation, “but it’s not funny. It’s ridiculous.”
