This is unacceptable! See Cruel to be Kind: Nursing Home Lockdowns by Tammy Swofford, John's sister. Excerpt (emphases mine):
...[John] is paying for the crime of needing to be kept “safe”. We are keeping
Americans “safe”! And in the process, destroying what it means to be
human.
John has gone from almost five months with no family contact, no holistic hugs and encompassing love, to the added burden of weeks of what is, for all practical purposes, a variation of solitary confinement. He has a roommate. But he doesn’t have… us. He is in a file cabinet… filed away as a numeric that reflects he is “safe”....
Read the entire essay HERE.
America needs to do better than impose sentences of "medical solitary confinement." Why haven't we done better thus far, all these months since March?
I did a post some tome ago regarding life in a retirement community which includes a nursing home. Thus we have been subject to most of the same restrictions. Not much has changed. No outsiders in. We are able to "leave" our apartments now once a day for dinner thought the restrictions are of course no more than 25 percent of the capacity can be used, thus dinner starts at 10:30 am and runs through the day. We previously had a choice of 9 restaurants if we wanted to visit and purchase a meal.
ReplyDeletehttps://bunkerville.wordpress.com/2020/05/19/marooned-in-no-mans-land-a-nursing-home/
Bunkerville,
DeleteThank you for that link!
Tough article. I am living it. My mom is not "with it" enough to Zoom and not dead enough to visit. None of her four children have visited for six months. She is depressed, and has dramatically stopped eating. I wonder if she thinks we don't care despite our flowers, cards, Zoom attempts, etc. Saddened.
DeleteOur medical health bureaucracies have failed us. With all our billions, we couldn't even develop a testing regime.
ReplyDeleteIt amazes me, all the months later, that we haven't done a very easy thing for schools, stores, churches, etc: Taking temperatures with touchless thermometers for anyone entering. Too hot? Go home.
Our government has been rotting and dysfunctional for decades; this just revealed it.
Government might have judged that temperature screening wouldn't work -- I don't think it would either.
DeleteThe solution to this problems may involve physicality to be sure, but the ROOT of the problem is SPIRITUAL INSUFFICIENCY.
Delete". . . Though I have the power to move mountains, but have not Love (GOD!) I am NOTHING. . ."
"See ye FIRST the Kingdom of God, and [everything you need] shall be added unto you."
O, rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him, and He shall give thee thy heart's desires . . ."
SF and Jez,
DeleteThe problem with temperature taking is that apparently one is contagious without an elevated temp or even other symptoms. If that's the case, a reliable test of some sort is essential, but we apparently don't have reliable tests.
Too many false negatives!
Back in March, one of my pilot friends had symptoms other than fever and was administered a test, which said that he didn't have COVID-19; a few weeks later, a follow-up test indicated the antibodies. He had indeed had COVID-19!
Franco,
DeleteFor the record, both Tammy and her brother John are strong Believers in Christ.
Temperature screening is one more tool. Its actually more effective than masks, which are not 100% effective. Refusing entry to people with a temp is 100%
DeleteThe data is still sketchy on asymptomatic people. Even so, if those were 50% of the infected, temperature screening filters out 50%.
Also, if you read into the details of spreader events and hot spots, many times the culprit is someone who knew he had symptoms. As a liberty-based democratic republic, we need to decide what to do to people like that. I am all for civil penalties and incarcerated quarantine for the recalcitrant sick.
Temperature screening is used by many nations who have done a much better job than us, like South Korea. It is one more tool in the box.
DeleteTemp screening and self described health is used all over industry.
DeleteEd: Thanks. Every day I go to work I have to take my temp first. By badging in, I am certifying I have a normal temp and that I do not have any other symptoms. The company I work for has had no covid hotspots and no cases of someone catching covid from someone at work.
DeleteI have tested negatively for COVID twice. I have also tested negatively for antibodies three times. I don't trust the tests. I had a client I work with who tested negative today after seven days of fever. I strongly suggested he test again; and then do multiple antibody tests. My job is to keep he and his wife safe (and their kids). I gave my best advice.
DeleteSF,
Deleteif you read into the details of spreader events and hot spots, many times the culprit is someone who knew he had symptoms
I've noticed that.
As one who had to deal with a horrible virus back in 1997 at the school of which I was the principal, I know that parents WILL send their kids to school when they are sick so that the parents can go to work.
Back in the virus outbreak in our school in 1997, we had 50%+ sick of the student body and the faculty. Seven long weeks! Fortunately, nobody died, but during that period I couldn't caregive my 80+ father for fear of passing the bug to him.
Yes, I caught the bug and went to work sick because my employers wouldn't grant me any sick leave. I dared not to lose time because I got the AOW Household health insurance from my employer.
KP,
DeleteI gave my best advice.
Yes.
Do the tests cost bucks?
AOW, no cost at CVS drive through. No physicians orders needed. Very early on at LabCorp I paid $10 for the antibody test and need a slip, but no charge the next two times. Why have I tested so often? I work with patients, my wife works with severely developmentally disabled adults, I have co-morbidity issues and my mom is 90 in a 24/7 hospice setting. If I had none of those there is still ample testing out there for those that want to be tested.
DeleteKP,
DeleteThank you for your response.
I'm not sure that I could get tested here -- bureaucratic beyond belief!
______ The Nursing Home ______
ReplyDeleteThis is the place were no one wants to go.
Here life pauses, then awaits return
Eerily to infancy with no
New prospects save the grassy plot or urn.
Unless one cannot think or ambulate,
Resorting to this dreariest retreat
Smacks of cowardice. It’s second rate ––
Insipid –– all too eager for defeat.
Not only brave souls love, despite the hurt.
Genuinely curious ones too
Hold on until the second spade of dirt
Obscures their last remains from public view.
Make each moment count. Be someone’s friend.
Eschew complaint. It pays no dividend.
~ FreeThinke
In John's case, there was really no other choice than a nursing home. Now he's a prisoner!
DeleteI understand that. It's often the case. I happen to have had a lot of experience tending invalids, and visiting beloved relatives and friends who've been confined to nursing homes.
DeleteFrom what I observed over a period of years few of the patients [really INMATES would be a more accurate term!] received regular visits from relatives or friends. Many were lucky to get fifteen minutes at Christmastime, if that.
SO, I came to see that once we become incapacitated it's very likely that we will have to live as PRISONERS for the rest of our born days
Nursing Homes really ARE prisons, you know –– even under the best of circumstances.
My intention is to DIE at HOME, even if it shortens my time on earth. Fortunately, i still have assets, and only a very few more years to live anyway.
But I FEEL for your friend, AOW. I really do.
My oldest friend (LITERALLY - she's halfway to age 98!) lives in a very nice Assisted Living Facility, but she has her own apartment, is more ambulatory than I, has all her marbles, and is doing astonishingly well.
I've known her for 72 years. Her husband, who died at home three years ago at age 94 ,was my first piano teacher, and the trhree of us have remained close all these decades.
At any rate, I make sure I call her at least once a week. We both enjoy being able to visit over the phone, and helps BOTH of us to avoid feeling isolated and forlorn.
But she's in remarkably good shape, and has always been blest with a serene, realistically stoical temperament.
Perhaps an .exception that proves the rule?
Franco,
DeleteNursing Homes really ARE prisons, you know –– even under the best of circumstances.
Perhaps, but Mr. AOW and I didn't feel that way when he was in a skilled nursing facility from September 2018-January 2019 (rehab post-pancreatitis). I could take him for outings for any reason, and the facility also had many social activities.
Would he rather be on a ventilator?
ReplyDeleteGood grief, Duck! What an irrelevant and insensitive comment!
DeleteFor one thing, you have zero idea as to John's advance medical directive. For another, you're deflecting from the point of this blog post.
Surely the point of this post isn't lost on you. Or is it?
And HCQ has reduced the need for ventilators.
DeleteIgnorance often looks insensitive to those in the know. Ducky's a good man so I cut him some slack. He has always pretended to be angry the ten years I have read his thoughts, but he is kind and a softy (a good thing). His kindness leaks out (and I told him this over a decade ago) with the accuracy of an anatomy chart :-)
Delete@KP ++
DeleteDucky turned me on to Matt Taibbi. He's one of the last honest journalists left in America.
KP,
DeleteTammy doesn't know Duck. And she saw his comments. Hurtful!
I cut Duck a lot of slack (never mind some of our hideous exchanges), but not as much as you (and SF).
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteThe virus did what it was engineered (and released) to do —it was all quite sophisticated, too. It did reveal all our weaknesses, as Silverfiddle suggests, but more than that, it revealed who we’ve become. By we, I mean western civilization a few generations past the time when we all stood up en mass to murdering, bullying thugs. It didn’t take long for the issue to become a political finger pointing game, either. The virulence attached to published leftist opinions suggests that this was all Trump’s fault because he is, after all, the president. But national socialism isn’t how America works. We have fifty sovereign states directly responsible to their citizens in matters of health and welfare and all we can say about this is what we can so easily observe: every ranking of best vs. worst states in their reaction to Covid-19 is subjective partisanship.
ReplyDeleteWhat these analysts have to say amounts to more bull feces heaped upon what has become a complete economic disaster in the US, Canada, and the UK. Their measure is the amount of increases in unemployment benefits. In the US, 13%; In the UK, 3%; Canada, 39%. Well, they argue, 3% isn’t so bad. Spain, for example, reflects the same percentage of unemployment as the UK ... but the fact is that both the UK and Spain are closed for business.
Partisan analysts have completely ignored the cumulative effect of unemployment. The number of laid off employees working for Boots/Walgreens (440,000) must be added to those of retail giant John Lewis (and partners), responsible for 39,000 employees. Well, not any more ... but these numbers are huge and unemployment benefits or not, these people are not going to find another job any time soon. Not being able to provide for one’s family is every bit as devastating as being locked away in a nursing facility. Devastation is the right word because whenever government policy isolates people from their loved ones, when government policy intentionally prevents people from being able earn a living, there is no better word to describe the effect of such policies.
Mustang,
DeleteDevastation is the right word because whenever government policy isolates people from their loved ones...
Yes! And John's plight should not be what it is!
Can't add to that other than wonder just how much people are going to take. When hundreds if not thousands can rub elbows at a G Floyd or J Lewis funeral but you as a single individual can't go to your Mom's funeral while the democrat officials point at you and laugh about it, just how much are you willing to take?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteThis too is part of an issue that has no easy answers, like school openings. We are essentially down to this... should we open X [schools, nursing homes, etc.] if in so doing, we are certain people will be exposed and become infected.
ReplyDeleteWe're stuck on the if.
Perhaps children are more resilient than others if they get Covid. Seniors are more vulnerable.
Should we allow visitors if we know that in so doing, we could expose the entire population of a nursing home to the virus? Or, do keep people safe from the virus, but deprive them of the good health that comes from familial engagement.
Anyone have an idea of a better way to work within these competing realities?
Dave,
DeleteAnyone have an idea of a better way to work within these competing realities?
Yes, that is the question that needs to be addressed.
Do YOU have any suggestions?
AOW... My picture of this is based on the new Tom Hanks movie "Greyhound."
DeleteThe movie focused on the reality that for US troops to cross the Atlantic, they had to endure 2 days in the middle of the ocean without air cover, exposing our ships to the U Boat force of Germany.
You left the states with air cover, crossed the unprotected zone [48 hours] and then came under British air cover.
We're in that unprotected zone right now.
As for a fix? Perhaps there is one, but, and I think this is huge, it would have to a national fix. And everyone would have to be part of sacrificing to make it possible.
I do not believe Americans will be part of that type sacrifice any longer.
So in the end... I see no solution.
In Mexico where I serve, families keep their families at home, and when they get the virus, the family cares for them up to their death. Then the familiy starts caring for the next relative who got the virus from their abuela, primo, or brother.
And the cycle starts all over again.
No, we're on the Murmansk run. The British destroyer screen refuses to sail under Luftwaffe controlled airspace so the merchant ship are forces to rum the last 200 miles undefended and on their own. Chances are pretty good you'll get sunk and rescued more than once before you get to the Russian port.
Delete:p
DeleteRunning the Gauntlet: The Murmansk Run & WWII's Arctic ConvoysThe naval escort of four cruisers and six destroyers did as ordered, left the freighters, and headed south. The merchant ship captains watched in horrified astonishment as their escorts departed—the military equivalent of a man walking his date home through a dangerous neighborhood, only to abandon her when approached by muggers and rapists. The force was now on its own.
Delete“We hate leaving PQ-17 behind,” wrote the film star Lieutenant Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., who was aboard the cruiser USS Wichita. “It looks so helpless now since the order to disperse has been circulated. The ships are now going around in circles, turning this way and that, like so many frightened chicks. Some can hardly go at all.”
A Soviet tanker sailing with the convoy, the Azerbaijan, was hit and set on fire but managed to maintain power and continue on. At 10:15 pm on the 4th, the convoy was hit again. But PQ-17 could not slip away into the darkness, because there was none at this time of year, and at this latitude, daylight lasts 24 hours day.
With no protection, Convoy PQ-17 was a sitting duck. The Luftwaffe caused the most damage, with the U-boats assisting. Tirpitz and the other German dreadnaughts left their Norwegian anchorage to join in the action, but it was determined they were not needed and they reversed course.
The German victory was nearly complete. Of the 37 PQ-17 ships that had sailed from Iceland, two had turned back earlier, eight were sunk by aerial bombs and torpedoes, nine were sunk by U-boats, and a further seven were sunk by U-boats after having been left dead in the water by air attack—a total of 24 ships lost. Going down with the dying freighters was a large portion of the $700 million worth of equipment—430 tanks, 210 crated aircraft, 3,350 vehicles, and 99,316 tons of general stores—along with 153 merchant seamen. Of the debacle, Churchill said, “PQ-17 was one of the most melancholy episodes of the war.”
Z... yep, I'm aware of that. The other related issue are the houses where a group of guys, all working lower paying jobs, pool resources to rent one house, or apartment. Then everyone sleeps in shifts. But when one gets sick, the whole place gets sick.
DeleteZ,
Deletethose poor must leave their homes to work and are not being as careful as they might
For that reason, I haven't hired The Maids since March. My house is a mess! **sigh**
Comparing this manufactured crisis to the real peril of crossing the Atlantic is absurd.
DeleteI'll abstain from saying more.
I dig yer stuff, Dave! AOW, my house is a mess as well.
DeleteEd... perhaps I'm an exception, but I'm in the 20's for people I know and work with dying. Add that to the doctors and nurses who help me run clinics across Oaxaca, Mexico and I can guarantee you this is no manufactured crisis.
DeleteKP... thanks amigo!
DeleteDave, yes, you only need to have friends who got this virus to know this is absolutely horrible........not sure it's not a manufactured crisis, because it SURE is being used as one (Imagine at the DNC anybody suggesting this is all Trump's fault....? After Cuomo, who railed on him last night, is on video RAVING about the great help Trump gave New York and how wonderful he was to work with? HA!!...) Ya, it's a crisis, it isn't manufactured, but BROTHER, is it being taken advantage of for political gain. Imagine slamming Trump for this economy? I didn't hear the raves over the fabulous economy before the virus shut our economy down, DID YOU?
DeleteFrom Our Health-Care System And The Nanny State, a blog post I published over 10 years ago:
ReplyDelete...Looking back, I realize that both the hospital and the nursing home anticipated that Mr. AOW would always be a resident of the nursing home, never mind that he was admitted there for stroke therapy and not as a long-term resident.
After Mr. AOW made substantial progress after several weeks in the nursing home, the day arrived when I informed the health-insurance company and the nursing home that I would be bringing Mr. AOW home in a few weeks. The representative from the health-insurance company again advised me to seek out Medicaid coverage. Talk about having their needle stuck!
Once we established that Medicaid was not an option and that I was indeed determined to bring Mr. AOW home, I was threatened: "We'll have to report you to adult protective services."
So, how did I bring Mr. AOW home without getting arrested?...
Read the rest HERE.
I have been hospitalized several times for pneumonia, each time for more than 2 weeks, and I shudder to think what would have happened if my wife had not been present and participating in my treatment. I was very ill, and my mind was not functioning properly. I could not remember my medical history and recent events, and the medical staff got that valid information from my wife, not from me.
ReplyDeleteIf I had had anyone of those experiences today, I probably would have wound up in a nursing home without my wife there to advocate for me, and the nursing home might well have killed me. Even if not, I shudder to think what 2 weeks in the hospital would be like with my wife's comforting presence banned.
The way that hospitals are handling this pandemic is "cruel and unusual punishment."
Maybe so Jayhawk... but what are their options?
DeleteIf you have to ask that question, there is simply no point in me replying to it.
DeleteJayhawk,
DeleteIn my view, every hospitalized patient needs an advocate!
Jayhawk answered to my question of available options for those in solitary confinement... "If you have to ask that question, there is simply no point in me replying to it."
DeleteIsn't that the question of the post? I stated above that I have no answers. Even AOW said my question responded that my question asking for a better idea, that it was "the question that needs to be addressed."
I'm not trying to minimize your experiences. And I can't even begin to fathom how hard it for people to be hospitalized and not, perhaps ever, see their family again. I'm just wondering, as was AOW, if anyone has ideas that point to a solution.
Sorry to have offended you.
The option, Mr. Miller, is TO ALLOW THE PATIENT'S ADVOCATE TO BE WITH AND ADVOCATE FOR THE PATIENT. That would, of course, normally be the spouse or parent of the patient. I do not know why that question even has to be asked.
DeleteMuch better to DIE a FREE man than to LIVE as a PRISONER, –– especially after one gets into his seventies.
DeleteMy MD has told me he has healthy patients in their nineties who are seeing their grandchildren and great grandchildren because they don't want to live their last few years without family, with no love, no physical caring. My own mother is spending 12 days with my sis who lives on the beach and has seen the grands and the great grands with masks on, very carefully...she's 89 and SO happy to be with them.........care must be taken... but it can work.
ReplyDeleteZ,
DeleteMay your mother remain well!
Z, as AOW said, may your mother and you and the kids be well.
DeleteThank you, KP!
DeleteSince the children are all under 6 and not seeing friends and not going out except to my sister's beach house, we know they're all negative and we're thrilled for the fun they're having seeing their great grandmother...! Thanks for the good wishes, everybody...not at all concerned. As I keep telling crazed friends "I don't have it, YOU don't have it..we aren't going to GET IT from each other"...As my MD explained, once you get a bit older "you would KNOW if you had this" And, indeed, the very few adults I know had symptoms...young people he treats did not, but were tested because they found they'd been exposed. They tested positive ("4 twenty-something party boys') and recovered quickly and completely. One 60 year old had mild symptoms and is recovered, too. The flu can be far worse.
DeleteI encourage each of you to take a mere 48 hours and do the "Dog Crate Challenge."
ReplyDeleteSit in a chair beside your bed. The remaining area available to you is the size of a crate for a large dog.
Have an individual with a mask deliver your meals, of course.
Come back in 48 hours and do blather away about ventilators (which are mechanical) and ignore the human soul.
If you cannot be crated for 48 hours, challenge yourself with months of no hugs, pats on the shoulder, physically present loved one. Then come back and discuss mercy with me.
Depression has doubled in Great Britain. They are not crated. Imagine the depression rates which are soaring in our long term care centers.
John's sister.