Impact of Nursing Home Closings

Following a link at Rob's House, I read this piece by Richard Douglass, an expert in this area (and also Rob's uncle), in the Detroit Free Press on Detroit-area nursing home closings. I initially glossed over it but found myself compelled to go back and read. Glad I did.

Detroit is hardly the only place to see this happen; what it means probably isn't good.

Sure, lots of people are able to maintain a quality of life now so a nursing home isn't a given at end of life. But nursing homes accommodate far more than seniors. And these closures have a lot to do with Bush budgets and state program cuts. When nursing homes close, where do the residents go?

Nursing homes aren't the only element in crisis. Public health here has been shrinking faster than the population can grow (and it's growing fast). That's how you end up with Bush threatening to send US soldiers in to hold those exposed to the bird flu under armed guard lest they sneeze on one of the rich Bushies.

No great society, in my estimate, can survive without some form of public-oriented health system that tries to close holes in the dyke. When America wakes up someday to realize we're all bankrupt buying wars to fight people who are just responding to our shabby ethics and have no public health care, the results won't be pretty. It may take a pandemic like the Avian flu to do it.