In 1968 Antony Armstrong-Jones published a documentary "Don't Count The
Candles" regarding the tragedy of senior confinement.
An 80 year old man was taken against his will to a nursing home.
One scene showed him wistfully looking out the window as his relative left,
one silent tear sliding down his cheek.
NPR's Ina Jaffe reported this month that many nursing and assisted
living institutions are running on a shoestring, with understaffing
while money is siphoned to owners' pockets, owners who ask Medicaid and Medicare for more money.
1.Excessive Profiteering B H Gray writes that 75% of these facilities are now
for-profit ones.
2. Shoestring understaffing causes neglect and sometimes premature death.
3. The lack of ethical supervision from federal agencies, owners, and managers generates abuse from yelling at residents to
physical assaults, chemical and physical restraints.
4. Substandard food is a complaint across the US. Some facilities are
spending as little as $6.00 a day per person, less than prisons.
5. Noise .. talking and laughing loudly during midnight shift
Loud sounds interfere with the sleep and health of residents.
6. Constant interruptions
7. Incarceration Living behind locked doors without the freedom to leave
is imprisonment
8. Lack of privacy, including conjugal rights
9. Theft
10. Denial of the right to refuse medication. In the last 4 years, NPR
reports, the right to refuse dangerous antipsychotic drugs has
declined.
11. The right to refuse breakfast because they have never eaten breakfast or because they want to sleep is not honored.
12. Abuse of Durable Power of Attorney
13. Premature Deaths: Poor air filtration systems, food poisoning, constant noise and interruptions, nurse understaffing, abuse, isolation, and confinement depression
are some factors of high death rates in assisted living and nursing home facilities.
14 Conflict of interest: Some facilities are owned by physicians who have
a profit motive in filling empty rooms, turning their temporary patients into
permanent residents.
15. There are virtually no black residents in these expensive jails, despite the fact that many
residents are on Medicaid
16 Isolation, says the AARP, is a factor in premature deaths among these facilities..
17 Physicians who assume a medical power of attorney and become
absolute dictators, seizing patient phones, denying visitors, denying the right
to change physicians
18 Doctors who bypass the courts and the right of a patient to
challenge the medical power of attorney
Profiteering and neglect
https://www.npr.org/people/2100677/ina-jaffe
Noise
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-12-03-me-9998-story.html
http://faculty.nps.edu/rdfricke/docs/Nursing_Home_Sleep_Paper.pdf
Poor Quality Food
https://theconversation.com/why-is-nursing-home-food-so-bad-some-spend-just-6-08-per-person-a-day-thats-lower-than-prison-120421
Abuse
https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/statutes-combat-elder-abuse-nursing-homes/2014-05
Federal court strikes down hospital practice of refusing care
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/federal-court-strikes-down-trump-administration-rule-allowing-refusals-health-care
Residents Not Allowed to Refuse Dangerous Antipsychotics
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/28/895308269/study-nursing-home-residents-not-protected-from-antipsychotic-drugs-under-trump
Nursing Home Theft
https://www.bayalarmmedical.com/medical-alert-blog/government-watchdogs-warn-about-theft-and-financial-abuse-in-senior-care-facilities/
Abuse of power of attorney\
https://ncea.acl.gov/NCEA/media/docs/archive/Durable-PofA-Abuse-FactSheet-Criminal-Justice-Professionals.pdf
Isolation
https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/health/info-2020/covid-isolation-killing-nursing-home-residents.html
ACLU on aspects of nursing homes
https://www.aclu.org/blog/disability-rights/integration-and-autonomy-people-disabilities/secretary-price-dont-mess-people
Violations of Privacy
https://www.olympiainjurylawyer.com/violations-of-privacy-in-nursing-homes
Racial Disparities