Farren Care Center Nurses Featured in Regional Magazine

TURNERS FALLS — Nurses from the Farren Care Center (FCC) were featured in the cover story in a recent issue of Advance for Nurses magazine. The “Garden of Respect” story focuses on the compassionate care provided by nurses who help their dual-diagnosis patients find dignity and peace.

The story also explains the unique challenges faced by nurses at FCC, due to the facility’s unusual admission policy. In addition to a dual mental and psychiatric diagnosis, all Farren residents have been rejected by at least five other nursing homes. In the story, Anne Nusbaum, director of Nursing, explains, “we have people who have been rejected by 20 to 30 nursing homes. There’s no place else for them to go. So we take the most challenging people in the state and we change their lives around … by treating them with dignity and respect.”

The “Garden of Respect” article also outlines FCC’s holistic treatment approach, techniques of medication management, efforts to educate the local community about Farren, and the support nurses provide FCC residents right up until the end. “No one dies alone here,” Nusbaum told the magazine.