As offspring and various other relatives can attest, I’ve latched onto my reputation for bad jokes the old-fashioned way: I’ve earned it.
It’s certainly the trait that has earned me the scorn, or at least eyerolls, of various I.T. employees through the years.
Way more often than I should I admit, I’ve told I.T. repair people that it’s more than a little “suspicious” that they always seem to be around whenever anything’s wrong.
Yes, a variation on the one about Little Timmy, who takes terrible grades home one night. The next day he sidles up to his grade school teacher and helpfully warns her: “You know, my dad said somebody’s in big trouble if my grades don’t look better next time.”
Nursing home operators can probably identify with my I.T. people and Little Timmy’s teacher, especially after the last week and a half. To hear an alarming number of people imply it, a huge slice of the pandemic’s carnage is nursing homes’ fault.
They are, after all, associated with a hugely disproportionate number of COVID-19 victims. No doubt, that numerical relationship is true. The numbers do not lie. And caregiving shortcomings, to put it politely, are not unknown to many nursing facilities.
However, as long-term care operators are frantically trying to remind the public — and more importantly, members of the legislative and executive branches of the government — there are some other important factors to remember.
“The grim reality is that for the elderly, COVID-19 is almost a perfect killing machine,” noted Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living, to a CNN audience March 10, 2020, just before the global pandemic was declared.
Older, frail seniors already in need of assistance and living in group settings … what could possibly have been worse? Especially in the early, pre-testing, pre-vaccine and pre-adequate PPE days for everyone.
However, now that the main COVID-19 hurricane has passed, it is time to creep out of the house, recoil at the damage … and assign blame.
To be sure, there have been, and maybe always will be, shady characters and sub-par performers in long-term care. It’s just like any profession, though others don’t deal with such a vulnerable population as regularly.
Many providers, however, feel like they’re being criticized for not brushing and flossing after the other team’s 375-pound fullback ran them over, knocking off their helmet and smashing their teeth.
Deficiencies in handwashing, staffing levels and answering call lights are, unfortunately, nothing new. And there’s no question it gets far more serious than that. But those circumstances are not the norm. (OK, staffing shortages are now the norm, but that is a multi-layered issue that is affecting many lowly paid populations.)
There are dangerous articles being written and public assertions made, some by people of significant stature. The logic goes like this: Evil virus, many deaths, faults found among nursing home operators — aha! The source of all of the pain and suffering. Snippets of truth, slices of hyperbole, and that’s the real danger. The concern is that broad-brush persecution has already started to lump all players together with the truly bad ones.
In the end, it comes down to this: Roughly three-fourths of nursing home care is paid for with government funds. Rare is the nursing facility that can survive without them. The government funds and runs this business, with few exceptions.
That’s why officials should focus most of their reform energy on the planks that call for greater scrutiny of owners — the ones accepting government funding in the name of taking care of its most vulnerable citizens. “Buyer beware,” or simply “buyer be prudent,” has never been more apropos. Spend money with the right people, and give them enough to run your business right.
Rather than blaming the predisposed victim for an unprecedented “killing machine,” maybe the industry’s overlord should start checking IDs at the door better before handing out licenses and money in the first place. No one could blame them.
To do otherwise would be a bad joke. Take it from someone who knows.
James M. Berklan is McKnight’s Long-Term Care News Executive Editor.
Opinions expressed in McKnight’s columns are not necessarily those of McKnight’s.
