Absolute power in officialdom

Chapter 198 Chaos in the Nursing Home, Wu Zhiyuan's Fury

The onlookers burst into enthusiastic applause.

Wu Zhiyuan made the final decision: "This matter is settled! The Civil Affairs Office will be in charge and will immediately coordinate with the town's nursing home to ensure that the elderly man's food, lodging, and basic care are properly arranged."

The identification of the elderly must be carried out simultaneously, but regardless of whether the identification can be completed, the town's nursing home must be responsible for the basic living needs of the elderly until their families are found or their final destination is determined!

The rescue operation following the collapse of the vegetable market shed has basically concluded.

However, the vegetable market is directly related to residents' livelihoods and must be repaired as soon as possible.

Wu Zhiyuan entrusted this matter to Zhang Ping, which was both the mayor's power and his responsibility.

"Mayor Zhang, the vegetable market is the people's 'vegetable basket,' and it cannot be shut down for a long time."

We must handle this as a special case, expedite repairs, and ensure that affected businesses can resume operations and people can buy groceries with peace of mind.

As Wu Zhiyuan walked back to the town government, he suddenly thought of visiting the nursing home.

The nursing home is located in a relatively remote area.

Deputy Mayor Fang Qingqing, along with Sun Dewang and Hu Lijing, accompanied them.

Fang Qingqing is a thirty-year-old woman, short and plump, with dark skin.

As the saying goes, fair skin can cover up a hundred flaws.

But she was less attractive, and her skin wasn't fair, so she looked like a middle-aged woman.

Fang Qingqing is thirty years old and has been a deputy section chief for two years.

Becoming a deputy section chief in your early twenties is not an easy task at the township level.

If you say she will be promoted in the future, probably no one will believe it.

Although it is said that all civil servants must take an exam to enter the workforce, Fang Qingqing perfectly avoided this requirement while remaining legal and compliant.

In fact, what many people don't know is that there are many other ways to become a civil servant besides taking the exam.

Fang Qingqing's academic performance was poor. She scored 211 points in the college entrance examination, which was euphemistically called "getting into a 211 university," and she enrolled in a private vocational college.

After graduating from junior college, I became a temporary worker in the town government.

Not just anyone can be a temporary worker.

Then, he joined the Party and was selected to be sent to the village for poverty alleviation, serving as the first secretary.

There are countless tasks to be done in the village, and a young girl with no experience simply cannot do them well.

But that doesn't matter. The key is that Fang Qingqing has connections.

For two years, he was assigned to work in the village to alleviate poverty and was rated "excellent" for two consecutive years.

There's really no standard for whether someone is excellent or not.

Next, he became a candidate for deputy mayor, and through some maneuvering, was elected deputy mayor.

In this way, one can legitimately become a civil servant, in a legal and compliant manner, and no one can find fault with it.

Of course, there are other legal and compliant ways to become a civil servant.

For example, in advanced state-owned enterprises, recruitment differs from civil service examinations.

The civil service exam, no matter how you look at it, is fair in terms of the written test, but the recruitment of state-owned enterprises is rife with shady practices.

If you manage to get a minor official position in a state-owned enterprise, you can legally and compliantly become a civil servant.

There is a personnel professional term called "transfer," which refers to the direct transfer of employees of state-owned enterprises and public institutions to civil servants without examination.

For example, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee has a "Regulations on the Transfer of Civil Servants". Article 2 states: "The transfer referred to in these Regulations refers to the transfer of personnel engaged in public service in state-owned enterprises, institutions of higher learning, research institutes, and other public institutions not managed in accordance with the Civil Servant Law to government agencies to assume leadership positions or positions at or above the fourth-level researcher level or other equivalent levels."

Of course, most people shouldn't think about it in this way; it's useless anyway. They should just focus on studying, taking the exam, and getting a government job.

Wu Zhiyuan and others entered the nursing home.

The nursing home consists of four rows of tiled houses facing east, west, south, and north, with a courtyard in the middle.

The yard is large and planted with all kinds of seasonal vegetables.

The elderly people bask in the sun under the eaves.

A stylishly dressed middle-aged woman is sitting with her legs crossed, eating sunflower seeds.

Upon seeing someone enter, they instinctively looked around. Seeing that it was Fang Qingqing and the others, they quickly stood up and greeted them with smiles: "Welcome town leaders to the nursing home to inspect and guide our work."

Fang Qingqing introduced Wu Zhiyuan with a smile: "Dean Liu, this is Secretary Wu, the new secretary of the town party committee. He just happened to be here to check on the nursing home."

Fang Qingqing then introduced the middle-aged woman: "Secretary Wu, this is Liu Xiaojuan, the director of the nursing home."

With a fawning smile, Liu Xiaojuan said in an exaggerated tone, "I heard that a new secretary is coming to the town. Oh my, Secretary Wu is so young and handsome!"

Secretary Wu, and all the leaders, please have a seat inside.

Wu Zhiyuan waved his hand: "No need, I'll just walk around in the yard and see the old folks."

"Director Liu, how many elderly people are currently living in the nursing home? What is the staffing situation like?"

"More than sixty people stayed here, and there were seven or eight staff members, including myself. We had everything we needed: cooks, cleaners, and caregivers!" Liu Xiaojuan replied.

Wu Zhiyuan nodded and walked towards the cafeteria.

Liu Xiaojuan quickly followed up: "Secretary Wu, we've been very strict about hygiene in the canteen, and the elderly are eating well..."

In the kitchen, a middle-aged woman was squatting in front of a large red plastic basin filled with murky, reddish water, in which pieces of dark-colored, loose-textured pork were soaking.

Wu Zhiyuan immediately noticed that the piece of meat was covered with granular glands—that was lymphatic tissue.

On the other side, in a dirty plastic basket, there were several stiff, blackened gills and a foul stench of dead fish.

The rice in the bag in the corner was grayish-yellow in color, clearly indicating that it was old grain.

Wu Zhiyuan's face darkened as he questioned Liu Xiaojuan, "You're feeding the elderly lymph node meat and dead fish?"

Liu Xiaojuan explained, "No, the nursing home keeps a few dogs to keep the elderly company, and this food is for the dogs."

"What about food for people?" Wu Zhiyuan opened the refrigerator and freezer and saw that inside were either chicken frames with little meat or frozen meat.

Although not all frozen meat is lymph node meat, it looks like it's of very poor quality.

Without saying a word, Wu Zhiyuan went to the dormitory where the old man lived.

Pushing open the door to a dormitory room, a strong, musty stench hits you.

The room was crammed with four metal bunk beds, and there were several urinals under the beds.

An old man was curled up on the innermost bed, groaning weakly.

Wu Zhiyuan walked to the old man's bedside, bent down, and asked softly, "Grandpa, where do you feel unwell?"

The old man opened his cloudy eyes, but didn't say a word.

"He's just getting old, he has a bit of a cough, it's an old problem," Liu Xiaojuan quickly explained.

"Do you have any medicine? Has the doctor from the town's health center come to see me?" Wu Zhiyuan asked.

"Yes, we have medicine! The doctor comes from time to time."

Wu Zhiyuan walked to a broken wooden cabinet in the corner of the room and opened the drawer.

The room was empty, containing only a few strips of the cheapest painkillers and expired cold medicine.

"Coming here and there? Is this all the medicine you have?" Wu Zhiyuan's voice was filled with anger.

Liu Xiaojuan broke out in a cold sweat: "They probably just finished eating. I'll go get it later!"

Wu Zhiyuan then pushed open the doors of several more dorm rooms.

The situation is exactly the same, or even worse.

In some rooms, the beds of disabled elderly people were in a mess, clearly indicating that they had not been cleaned or cared for in a timely manner.

Suppressing his anger, Wu Zhiyuan asked in a deep voice, "How often are the elderly person's bedding changed? How often are the rooms and common areas disinfected?"

Liu Xiaojuan quickly replied, "It's changed once a week! It's cleaned every day!"

"Every day?" Wu Zhiyuan pointed to the stains on the ground and the mold in the corner of the wall: "Is this what you call cleaning every day?"

Tell me, where does the annual operating fund, food subsidy, and medical subsidy allocated by the county and town to the nursing home go?

So you used it to buy this lymph node meat, dead fish, and stale rice?

Are they really going to let the elderly sleep on these moldy, insect-infested beds? And when they get sick, they don't even have a decent medicine?

His questions grew increasingly harsh, and Liu Xiaojuan's face flushed red and then turned pale.

"Secretary Wu, you can't say that! Prices are so high now! That little bit of funding is simply not enough!"

We're barely managing to stay afloat! Besides, this nursing home is contracted out, and the contract fee is so low. We need to hire people to work, and we need to feed them too.

"Contracted out?" Wu Zhiyuan turned his gaze to Fang Qingqing. "Mayor Fang, what's going on? A public nursing home has been contracted out to a private business?"

Who made the decision? What procedures were followed? What's the contract?

Fang Qingqing forced a smile and explained, "Secretary Wu, this was decided by the previous leadership team. The main goal was to introduce social resources to improve management efficiency and service quality. The process involved open bidding."

"Open bidding?" Wu Zhiyuan sneered. "Does Dean Liu have professional elderly care qualifications or management experience? How much is the contract fee? How long is the contract period?"

Does the government have a clear oversight and assessment mechanism for service quality, safety standards, and the use of funds?

Also, from what I've seen along the way, are there more than sixty elderly people in the courtyard and dormitories?

Liu Xiaojuan quickly explained, "Secretary Wu, some of the elderly went out shopping, and some went to visit relatives."

Wu Zhiyuan got serious and counted the beds in each room, asking the elderly people questions.

After confirmation, the nursing home actually only houses about thirty elderly people.

It is clear that Liu Xiaojuan falsified the number of people to fraudulently obtain government subsidies.

At this moment, Wu Zhiyuan received a phone call from Li Changfu, the chairman of the town's People's Congress.

"Secretary Wu, I heard that you went to the nursing home to experience the people's conditions and conduct a surprise inspection?"

Liu Xiaojuan is my sister-in-law. She's a woman with limited abilities, and sometimes she might not be the most thorough in handling things, but she's a very honest person and quite devoted to the elderly.

"Dedicated?" Wu Zhiyuan sneered. "Chairman Li, what I see is not dedication!"

Lymphatic meat, dead fish, and stale rice were fed to the elderly; the dormitories were filthy and chaotic; the elderly had no medicine when they were sick; and the number of people was falsely reported to obtain government subsidies!

Is this what you call doing your best? In my opinion, this is breaking the law and committing a crime!