June 2020, “Please Open Nursing Homes Now," change.org
I was patient, but now I am outraged. My husband lives in a nursing facility in Orlando. He is a young stroke victim, only 60. He is paralyzed, blind in one eye, can barely talk, and completely vulnerable. I was his voice. I have not seen my husband for three months. At his recent care meeting, I was told: it will be three more months! (late summer or September), a total of six months not seeing him!
If this was truly about the virus, we would have locked-in staff and patients.
Staff can come and go as they please. They can go home at night and be exposed to all the germs our in the public when they pump gas, run in Walmart, pet their dog, change their baby’s diaper, have sex with their mate, and then come back, wash up, put on scrubs and without quarantine or isolation, put on a cloth mask, and immediately go into a patient’s room. Yet, family members cannot visit even in a gown, mask, and gloves!
As well suppliers can come to nursing homes: support staff, traveling health care workers, Fed Ex, UPS, and other delivery people, food prep workers, maintenance staff such as A/C repair, yet when a family member comes to the facility we are not allowed in and treated like criminals. If I forced myself in to see my husband, I would be arrested, but before these mandates, I was welcomed to see him, 24 hours a day.
This is a human rights violation for people in Nursing homes
When I FaceTime my husband, he cries [as did my mother when we attempted video meetings–my comment posted below] is so lonely and some days quite mentally disoriented. [This is why Solitary Confinement is considered inhumane even for murders.] Elderly people must be touched, hugged, listened to, and allowed to see the people who love them. If Alzheimer’s patients don’t see family consistently, they forget forever. Often at nursing homes and especially because of Covid-19, patients are not allowed to leave their rooms. My husband must stay in his room most days, because he has trouble keeping his mask on so he in his chair with little staff interaction. He gets extremely agitated, so the staff further medicates him. His mental health is at stake. He is the father of eight children and has ten grandchildren. He needs to see us.
The elderly can not stay isolated indefinitely!
The facility told me if I took my husband to his yearly neurologist apt., once back, my husband would be placed in total isolation for 2-weeks. It’s almost like solitary confinement. Special gowns for staff and no interaction with anyone.
I was also told if I were to get in and “touched him” they would also isolate him.
I offered to bring my husband home until this crisis was over and they said he would be discharged and would lose his bed space and they have a long wait-list and have to be coronavirus free upon returning.
Nursing Homes aren’t the safest places, to begin with
I am my husband’s voice. I monitor his meds, I stay on top of his care. I make sure he is comfortable, and he has enough clean clothes, a favorite blanket, TV on the right show. I monitor his grooming (shave him, brush his teeth). Without me, he is completely vulnerable to any kind of abuse. This past week, during Face-time, my husband couldn’t respond. His nurse finally admitted to giving extra Xanax because he has become increasingly agitated. Trapped in his chair, in his nursing home. This is mental abuse!
This is a new form of Socialism that allows the “state” to make all the decisions instead of allowing for an elder’s individual and family to have rights.
We must stop this! We can NEVER let this happen again!
President Trump, please open the nursing homes now!
Governors, please open up the nursing homes now!
Congress, please open up the nursing homes now!
Our family members need us:
http://www.FamiliesAgainstSocialism.org”
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Comment by blog editor, Susan: 8/4/20, My mother who turns 96 this week is in Trump-ordered solitary confinement in a New Jersey nursing home that specializes in dementia. We were hopeful that visiting her via video might help but our attempted video visits made my mother so sad that she cried. It’s the first time in my life that I’ve ever seen her cry. We no longer make video appointments. How can this country do this to an innocent 96 year old woman with dementia who grew up in the depression, lived through WWII, worked hard all her life, was frugal, put aside money for nursing home expenses so she’d be able to be in a community or at least share meals with fellow residents who may also have dementia and arthritis. Now she gets none of that. For 6 months she’s been confined to her room, no mingling, not even allowed to share meals. And there’s no end in sight. Nursing home residents in solitary confinement are ignored by Trump because they don’t break windows or block highways. This must end immediately. (By the way, isn’t there an election coming up? Millions of nursing home residents vote by absentee ballot.)
Here’s Mom in 1947 with her husband to be in Syracuse, NY.
Mom’s future husband interrupted his college studies to fight in WW II, US Army Air Force in the Pacific. After the War he married my mother. They started with nothing but worked very hard their whole lives. They always voted Republican. Sadly, neither political party deserved their votes.
Here’s Mom’s future husband practicing on his Stearman biplane in 1940s for missions in the Pacific in WWII. Dad died in 2017
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