As we age, we begin to see many of our friends enter assistive care facilities. Sometimes, as in the case of XGFJ's mother, little assistance is needed to live a rewarding life. In the case of my father, much more assistance was needed because my dad was no longer self ambulatory. Like my father, some people prosper when in the right assistive care facility, as they can resume the socialization denied them by their former isolation. But in the wrong facility, a social person can feel imprisoned.
When I visited Pat, I noticed how sterile and empty her new place seemed. Save for the receptionist at the front desk, the place was devoid of people. There was a small area to the right of the reception desk where kids could play, but I wondered - how many people are bringing very young kids to see their elders in nursing homes these days? I rarely saw them when I visited my dad, and thought that this room was there more for show than anything else.
RQS and I walked to the elevator and got off on the 3rd floor. I was surprised at how quiet this place was. Looking to my left, I saw another reception desk in front of us, this one being empty. In another nursing home, or a hospital, it would be staffed by nurses in charge of patient care. In this place, it looked like it was set up for a different kind of care facility, but left unused as it wasn't apparently needed to service the patients currently housed in this building. So, we walked down the aisle to Pat's room, knocked on the door, and were greeted warmly.
Pat and her daughter visited several care facilities before choosing this one. It must have been heart wrenching for her to dispose of many of the things she accumulated over the years. There was almost nothing from her old life present in the room. The room was almost as sterile as the hall outside. And this said that this room was not "Home" for Pat. It was simply a place to stay.
Unlike my dad's nursing home, Pat's place didn't seem to have the on-site services that my dad's place had. For a place doing some of its business as a memory care center, I found it amazing how few safeguards were there to keep memory care patients from wandering off site. People like Pat were tasked to find their own transportation to off-site doctors - and possibly get dropped off at the wrong sites with no one to help them get where they need to go. Yet, they are prohibited from leaving the facility's grounds - even for a healthy walk. Go figure.
The economics of nursing homes in the United States appalls me. Like our prisons, many are places which have evolved to warehouse people who have no economic value to the larger society. (I will not go into prison economics here, save that the "for profit" sector has very little incentive to treat inmates with the full respect that most humans deserve - something it has in common with nursing homes.) As America ages, "for profit" nursing homes have sprung up, many with the goal of raking in as many Medicare dollars as is possible. Service quality is not a major factor. If it was, I'd see more evidence of "enrichment activities" than I did in Pat's facility.
Pat noted several things I won't mention here. Let's say that one has to take what she said with a grain of salt - even if what she said rang true in my ears. Without people to socialize with, Pat is now a lonely person with few ways of dealing with her feelings. In short, this place is a prison for her, a cage without bars.
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