Accumulation of an "extreme elderly genocide persisting for several decades"
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, American society has been left to grapple with the devastating impact it had on nursing home residents. A prominent voice in this conversation is Margaret Morganroth Gullette, a scholar who argues that something akin to mass murder took place in nursing facilities due to indifference and preexisting ageism.
Gullette's book, American Eldercide: How It Happened, How to Prevent It, published by The University of Chicago Press, delves deep into this tragic subject. The book is a call to action, proposing solutions to prevent a future catastrophe.
One of Gullette's proposals is the establishment of a federal long-term care benefit, a new department of elder and disability affairs, and the nationalization of nursing homes. She also advocates for more personal protective equipment, testing, contact tracing, and staffing to ensure the safety of nursing home residents.
Gullette's writing style is clear and punchy, but can also be nonlinear, repetitive, and laden with quotes from various authors. This approach is intended to drive home the urgency of the issue and the need for comprehensive change.
The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States was particularly dangerous to residents of nursing homes, accounting for as many as 20% of Covid fatalities. Gullette expresses concern about the lack of first-person accounts from nursing home residents in the media during the pandemic. She believes that forgetting nursing home residents is a problem for the nation, as the Eldercide continues.
The specific differences between nursing homes that turned into death traps and others that did not, as observed by Gullette, would offer valuable lessons for future pandemics and public health in general. Nursing homes in the United States that achieved better outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic were typically led or influenced by organizations or management teams focused on quality improvement, interdisciplinary collaboration, and emergency preparedness.
One example of a nursing home that fared well during the pandemic is a Baptist-run nonprofit in Baltimore. This facility brought in personal protective equipment early and had a full-time infection control specialist, keeping the pandemic largely at bay.
However, it's important to note that specific named organizations directly responsible for such superior nursing home leadership during the pandemic are not explicitly identified in the given search results.
Gullette also touches on a wide range of topics related to the pandemic, including ventilator triage, grocery store senior hours, and cultural representations of dementia. She views the Eldercide as a cultural deformity that preceded, aggravated, and will likely outlast the pandemic.
Gullette blames the tragedy of runaway nursing home deaths on indifference, rooted in preexisting ageism, as well as other prejudices such as sexism, sizeism, ableism, racism, homophobia, classism, and "dementism, or dread of Alzheimer's-like memory loss." She argues that the pandemic was a time filled with bad magical thinking.
An investigative account detailing what occurred in nursing homes during the pandemic, where lockdowns imposed extreme hardship without guaranteeing safety, would be an indispensable addition to the public health literature. That book remains to be written.
Gullette also proposes a National Eldercide Memorial for Nursing-Facility Residents Who Died of COVID, as a reminder of the lives lost and the need for change. She believes that many nursing home deaths could have been avoided with better infection control, paid sick leave for employees, and other public health measures.
In conclusion, Gullette's work serves as a call to action, highlighting the need for comprehensive changes in the way we care for our elderly population. Her proposals offer a roadmap for preventing future catastrophes and ensuring the safety and dignity of nursing home residents.
