A friend of mine here in the elder care community was in pain. I could see it on her face. It was 10:00 a.m. and the medicine she was supposed to take at 7:00 had not arrived. A couple of Tylenol was all she needed, but residents in assisted care must surrender to the nursing staff every drug in their possession, the point being that they have admitted an inability to take the right medicine at the right time in the right amount.
Bravely, Annie had come to the group study anyway, and the distress on her face tested my ethical commitments. With the classification of “independent living,” I had Tylenol in my bedside table and would gladly share with Alice. But this is against the rules, and if anything went wrong as a result, I could be in trouble.
Susan, also a part of this small group, did not get to the meeting at all, because the attendant who helps her shower and dress came very late.
Meanwhile, down the hall, Betty, who had recently lost her ability to walk, needed someone to push her wheelchair. On a beautiful spring day she longed to go out to the patio and sit in the sun, but all the attendants were busy, so she stayed in the sitting room, wishing. Again, a healthy friend could not help since she isn’t covered by the company’s insurance.
My problem was less serious than those of Annie, Susan and Betty. I missed the evening news because service in the dining room was so slow.
This was the height of the pandemic. Hospitals were full of dangerously sick and contagious people. Health care workers were breaking under the stress. Childcare programs and schools had closed, leaving parents stranded.
As a result of all this, homes for the aged and ailing were understaffed. Some of their employees refused to be vaccinated and had to be dismissed. And it seemed that everybody who could work was demanding more money.
This situation exposed the truth that long-term care facilities are dependent on more than just trained health care staff but also a variety of other workers in the local market.
An acquaintance in another home told me that her community lost its chef, and sometimes the administrators resorted to ordering pizza delivery for the residents. One community was embarrassed to have dirty halls and no one to do the cleaning. All were short of cooks, waiters, gardeners, and cleaning staff, as well as nurses.
One way or another the overall industry lost 400,000 employees during the covid pandemic, according to McKnight’s Business Daily.
Business correspondents are saying now that a large number of workers who left the American job market during the pandemic don’t seem to be in a hurry to return. President Biden reported recently that fewer people are looking for jobs than anytime since 1950. Low unemployment is normally considered a healthy economic symptom. In this case it apparently means also that the return to normal is slow.
An assisted care community is not like a restaurant. The owner can’t just close the doors for a while. And in most communities, administrative staffs do not share their own issues with residents, leaving residents ignorant of what administrators might be doing to solve problems.
The situation creates frustration and depression among residents as well as tension between residents and staff. Residents complain legitimately that they paid for services they did not receive. They question the administration’s efforts and the willingness to offer higher salaries in order to entice workers. The tension promotes depression and lethargy in a population already isolated from family and friends.
Thinking about this today has helped me to see that in the home where I live, the Human Enrichment Department has been a source of strength. No matter what else happens, the staff works with imagination and endless energy to keep us involved and amused and interested in life. In the end we, at least some of us, are a community, even when we have complaints. This example illustrates two encouraging truths. In the assisted care environment, elements such as friendship and purpose and a sense of personal worth might be as important as the routine services offered. And there are people dedicated to serving the elderly.
Nevertheless, if we did not know it before, the pandemic taught all of us that any kind of assisted care facility is vulnerable to the ills of the surrounding world. The problems on the outside keep coming in, creating practical conflicts and emotional results, because an assisted care community is part of the society, dependent on it, recipient of its virtues and vulnerable to its ills.
This is such an important topic. Frances, your style of writing begs to be read and who better to tell this than someone living through it. As always, I enjoy reading what you write. I will certainly share it with my community.
Well-said. I think you should submit it to AARP for publication.
I agree
AARP might like it.