Nursing homes have largely given up on the fiction of being "homelike," and have instead embraced their roots as total institutions - where family, individuality, spirituality and agency go to die.
Your posts make me so sad for this precious group of people. Brilliant writing. In medicine, we need to always ask if what we’re doing is working, helping or harming. I obviously, none of the interventions made including 6 foot signs, plexiglass or masks have worked. Likely, your residents got infected no matter what. At my clinic (we’re an independent clinic but I have liberal partners), I pushed back against all of the requirements when our staff got sick anyway. None of what we did made a difference and it wasted our time. Who can you push back against in senior care? Sometimes even asking the questions and pointing out the absurd helps. I would empower the families of the residents to start pushing back. I did this at the hospital, too. I told my patients that when they wrote reviews to comment that their visit was made worse by not being able to see faces. We don’t mask at my hospital anymore. But I am in the south.
No^6. The inability of our society to recognize and address these shortcomings reflect a general decline of the civilization we have built. Any one of us could wind up inheriting tomorrow the legacy of the care we show today.
Sadly true. In my opinion many have used the pandemic as an excuse to provide pretty harmful environments. Quantity over quality of life. I fought hard to keep my 95 year old MIL in an ALF no matter the risk of "less supervision ". She enjoyed great quality of life and had a peaceful and graceful death in her own apartment.
Your posts make me so sad for this precious group of people. Brilliant writing. In medicine, we need to always ask if what we’re doing is working, helping or harming. I obviously, none of the interventions made including 6 foot signs, plexiglass or masks have worked. Likely, your residents got infected no matter what. At my clinic (we’re an independent clinic but I have liberal partners), I pushed back against all of the requirements when our staff got sick anyway. None of what we did made a difference and it wasted our time. Who can you push back against in senior care? Sometimes even asking the questions and pointing out the absurd helps. I would empower the families of the residents to start pushing back. I did this at the hospital, too. I told my patients that when they wrote reviews to comment that their visit was made worse by not being able to see faces. We don’t mask at my hospital anymore. But I am in the south.
No^6. The inability of our society to recognize and address these shortcomings reflect a general decline of the civilization we have built. Any one of us could wind up inheriting tomorrow the legacy of the care we show today.
Sadly true. In my opinion many have used the pandemic as an excuse to provide pretty harmful environments. Quantity over quality of life. I fought hard to keep my 95 year old MIL in an ALF no matter the risk of "less supervision ". She enjoyed great quality of life and had a peaceful and graceful death in her own apartment.
So true, so sad, and brilliantly written as usual .. But then I'm biased ...