MS Speaks

I've never understood why there have to be nursing homes at all. If they didn't exist, people would have to think of some other way of caring for those who need help because of aging and disability. Instead, nursing homes are there. They're handy. And then there is the way our society has of covering up the way things work.


"Aunt Sarah had to be put in a Home" (said very sadly, almost mournfully)--a way of saying that this had to happen. They had no choice.  Just one of those inevitable things.


(Except that it wasn't.)


And the well-known way in which many nursing homes present a sumptuously decorated facade in the form of a lobby or waiting area with flocked wallpaper and cheery colors, with everything all shipshape and sparkling clean--while the interior, where the residents are, reeks of urine and is packed with people who are getting in one another's way. Or tied to their beds, screaming.


I'm waiting to find out about some organization that is working hard to put an end to this ultra-profitable nursing home industry. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the dangers to the health and well-being of nursing home residents, but so far I  haven't noticed anyone asking for an end to nursing homes.


But today there was a ray of hope--an article in The Nation (August 11, 2020), "It's Time to Abolish Nursing Homes":


https://www.thenation.com/article/society/abolish-nursing-homes/

The US nursing home situation is at least being addressed in this call for something different, appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine (September 2, 2020)--"Long-term care policy after COVID-19: Solving the nursing home crisis":


https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2014811?query=TOC