Editorial: Our View - The COVID-19 Pandemic Could Be Our Last Chance to Get Long-term Elder Care Right
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune published an editorial, "Our View: The COVID-19 Pandemic Could Be Our Last Chance to Get Long-term Elder Care Right."
"In our society," the editorial points out, "the nursing home occupies a niche so far out of sight and mind that we don't have to think about it," but nursing homes have been brought to our attention through COVID-19 in a way we could not ignore and should have seen coming. "These facilities have long been breeding grounds for contagion, and infection control measures have been cited as lax at some sites for years on end." They cite Florida's rankings in the 2020 Long-Term Supports and Services scorecard and discuss AARP's recent nursing home state-by-state dashboard.
The article says that rather than "we can continue to wallow in shame over this, or...we can leverage the COVID-19 disruption into a full-scale revolution regarding how we provide comfort for the 57% of nursing home residents who are not there for rehabilitation or recovery, who are frail or cognitively impaired or both, and who will remain in need of care until they die."
"Three respected aging specialists, writing in a commentary for the National Academy of Medicine argue convincingly that this is a chance we have to seize. They quote Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, FAAN, JAHF President, and Christopher F. Koller, The Milbank Memorial Fund President, "'The inadequacy of the current system has been put on display,' the authors conclude. It's high time we started building a better one."
To read the editorial, click here.
To go to the NAM commentary, click here.