Jay Caspian Kang writes about Covid-19 and the nursing home tragedy in the US in an opinion piece for the New York Times. Nearly 200,000 nursing home and long-term care facility residents have died of Covid-19. After tapering off for a bit, Covid-19 deaths in long-term care facilities are increasing again.
Nearly one in ten nursing home and long-term care facility residents have died of Covid-19. And, they continue to die. Congress and state lawmakers have taken precious little action to protect them. Indeed, former NYS governor Cuomo inexplicably required nursing homes to admit Covid-19 patients in stable condition post hospital discharge.
All in, NYS nursing homes took in more than 9,000 residents with Covid. Rather than protecting residents, Governor Cuomo protected nursing home and hospital owners, through an order shielding them from liability for Covid-19 deaths in their facilities. Fortunately, that protection ended back in April 2021. The Cuomo administration also underreported the number of nursing home deaths.
The nursing home industry is no longer about motherhood and apple pie. Most nursing homes are now owned by large corporations and are part of chains. Quality of care is a serious issue. Often, these nursing homes are understaffed.
Kang says that nursing homes have always had the ability to contain the spread of the virus in their facilities. But, the for-profit nursing home owners fear losing money when they invest in containing the spread of Covid-19. Local governments, in sharp contrast, are not concerned with delivering profits to shareholders and can prioritize patient safety. Laguna Honda, run by the local government in California, had the staff necessary to keep people from dying and the willingness to respond to emerging issues swiftly, when necessary.
Kang blames the for-profit nursing home industry “almost entirely” for all the needless nursing home Covid-19 deaths. They have not provided residents with the care they need. And lawmakers have sat quietly on the sidelines while this has happened.
What’s beyond shocking is that, notwithstanding all these deaths–which some have called “murders”–nursing homes have raked in large profits. There does not appear to be the political will to keep nursing home owners from prioritizing profits, let alone to hold nursing home owners accountable for these deaths.
It seems that it’s not worth it to lawmakers to act says Kang. The people running these nursing homes are powerful. And, we are an ageist society, with our representatives apparently willing to write off the death of the elderly as inconsequential.
It’s time we passed laws that increased the rights of nursing home residents and made it costly for nursing home owners to behave negligently towards their residents. Moreover, state and local governments should be able to take control of for-profit nursing homes that are failing their residents, through eminent domain. Kang argues that there is no other solution that will lead nursing home owners to deliver the care people need.
Currently, a large percentage of the money that Medicaid and Medicare allocate to nursing homes never gets allocated to the care and feeding of residents. Rather, it gets pocketed by the nursing home owners in one way or another. That’s why it is smart to avoid using for-profit chain nursing homes.
One expert says that the nursing home industry is called the “Syndicate” because it is so corrupt. Whether we can overcome their money, their power, and their political ties is the question.
Here’s more from Just Care: