Comments on: The crime against the nursing home elderly

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 01:43:39 +0000

Another perspective. I worked in numerous nursing homes in New Jersey during the Pandemic. Most of them had covid spread throughout and had 12% of the residents in 3 months. And more that were very ill. What clearly helped was having a separate wing with isolated ventilation for covid patients. And then IMMEDIATELY isolating anyone who had even a cold or one fever. Every facility had lockdown so there was no way to tell if that helped or not.
Not trying to say that a particular lockdown policy was right or wrong, but that some policies did indeed have the potential to save A LOT of lives.

By: Mrs Whatsit

Mrs Whatsit — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 20:31:17 +0000

My aunt, in her late 80s and suffering from cognitive issues, died in March after spending a year locked down in the memory care facility where she lived. Her daughter — an only child — was not allowed to visit throughout that time. They did have Zoom calls, but that’s not much help when your understanding is as limited as my aunt’s was by then. My cousin said, so sadly, that the only communication that meant anything to her mother by that time was to hold her hand or stroke her hair. Of course that’s not possible with Zoom, and my aunt and cousin went through that last year of her life without that loving contact. The blessing of her memory issues was that my aunt didn’t really remember how long she’d been alone, and she stayed cheerful, singing to the staff or anyone who would listen in her lovely voice every day, just as she always had. But that didn’t work for my cousin, who missed her mom every day, and of course still does.

The combination of isolating the elderly in nursing homes to “protect” them while simultaneously undoing the protection by knowingly moving people who actually had Covid into their homes is so cruel, abusive and stupid that I don’t know when I’ll get over being so angry that my heartbeat speeds up and my stomach churns when I think about it. I know the people who run the nursing homes were trying to do their best, even if they made mistakes. But Cuomo wasn’t. Selfish monster.

By: Sarah Rolph

Sarah Rolph — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 15:11:02 +0000

This was indeed one of the most awful aspects of last year.

One place in France figured it out early on and did things right:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/france-vilanova-nursing-home-1.5554296

By: Art+Deco

Art+Deco — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 18:12:51 +0000

reclaim their role as primary caregiver. It simply isn’t the same having an agency, clinic, or nursing home assume that responsibility.

They’re in nursing homes because (1) they don’t trust their relatives, and (2) they’re not ambulatory, and (3) they’re commonly senile as well. My grandfather and his brother could and did take in their elderly parents in 1945; their parents were capable of braving a 175 mile train ride, climbing stairs, and defecating without assistance. If you can find a nursing home resident who can manage these physically, you’ll find they’re unable to form new memories and are losing their old ones. You had, in 1955, 850,000 people living in state asylums. One reason you have fewer than 100,000 today is that a portion of that clientele is housed in institutions more precisely adapted to their problems, nursing homes among them.

By: AR

AR — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 17:56:56 +0000

I suspect the COVID saga will contribute to the end of the feminist-driven anti-family movement that gripped our country in the 20th century. The experiences of families being unable to be with their dying parents will make a strong impression on the minds of the young and women will start insisting they be allowed to reclaim their role as primary caregiver. It simply isn’t the same having an agency, clinic, or nursing home assume that responsibility.

By: Philu

Philu — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 13:14:37 +0000

My wife was at a critical stage of alzheimers where remembering family members was becoming ever more difficult when the facility was locked down. After two months, l got a call informing me that her condition was critical and I should visit her. I was able to get them to allow her son to visit, but no one else. We weren’t able to do much more than watch the final days and doubt if she was aware of our presence.

By: Mattsky

Mattsky — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 12:35:17 +0000

My father died at the end of January 2020. I’m glad I was able to be with him when he passed and spend time with him during a long hospitalization. If it happened a couple of months later he would have been alone through it all.

I had a friend that died this year. He was in a nursing home with MS. For about a year he could only do zoom meetings. Also while the nursing home had covid cases and he was kept confined to his room.

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 09:27:35 +0000

My wife and I do Meals on Wheels, some of whose clients are in independent living. I’ve delivered to four different facilitnies. Instead of entering and going to the apartment, we now bag the meals with room numbers and leave in the foyer for staff to deliver.
Except for one. There, mask, sanitize, walk in, knock, deliver, say hi as in the old days.Same as other deliveries or visitors. No problems.
Somebody had guts.

By: J.J.

J.J. — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 03:32:36 +0000

We are now talking about what went wrong. And we know much of what went wrong was due to politics. But we also know that so much was unknown or at least kept from the public – seemingly for political reasons That’s why it’s now necessary to analyze this and make sure that the same mistakes aren’t repeated.

I empathize with anyone who was in an eldercare facility during the pandemic. But for the fact that my wife and I have moved in with our daughter that is where we would have been. We’re both still able to feed/dress/bathe ourselves, and do some home chores, but each year we are progressively less capable. We are determined not to go to eldercare unless it’s the last possible option. Between our daughter doing some things and hiring “visiting angels,” we hope to finish our lives in our home.

For those who must go into a facility, we need to establish better practices. We must get politics out of healthcare and public health. We need some voices of reason to speak out and write about what works and what doesn’t. We can and must do better. But unless someone can write it down for people to study nd analyze, it will all be for naught.

By: Zaphod

Zaphod — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 02:51:10 +0000

“Precautionary Principal”

There’s a time and a place for this… I think it’s more a perverted Pascal’s Wager that our rotten Elites have hoodwinked themselves and much of us with.

Same-same, But Different as that noted race of Philosophers, the Thais, are wont to say.

We are dealing with the Religious Impulse run wild here.