Here is the original post: https://saidit.net/s/whatever/comments/406m/my_87_year_old_father_has_cornoavirus_i_would/ and and the first update: https://saidit.net/s/whatever/comments/46zk/update_on_my_87year_old_father_with_covid19/
TLDR of those posts: My 87-year old father tested positive for COVID-19. He was forced into a nursing home, despite the fact that he was a-symptomatic. He was in the nursing home for 22 days and never got sick. They would not let him out of bed, causing total muscle atrophy. He can no longer get out of bed, stand or walk. They wouldn't allow him to take psoriasis medicine, so his body was covered in sores by the time he got out. They wouldn't let him have steroid shots to control pain from a pinched spinal cord and arthritis, so he was in excruciating pain the whole time he was there. And he was psychologically having a hard time with the complete isolation. All of this was done to him "for his own protection!"
Update:
In good news, he got out of the nursing home on Tuesday, May 12, after 22 days in the nursing home. Unfortunately, things are not much better for him since going back to his assisted living facility.
AZ is open again for the most part, but not assisted living facilities. Residents are still not allowed to go out except for essential doctor appointments, and they are not allowed any visitors – including seeing other residents in the facility. My dad is emotionally falling apart from 11 weeks of isolation.
The assisted living facility was already short-staffed before the lock-down began, and they relied on people like my sister who regularly came in to help care for their loved ones. Since the lockdown started, 5 staffers have been unable to come to work due to COVID-19 exposure (my dad doesn’t know if they got sick or are just carriers) and another four are not working there anymore, though my dad doesn’t know why. There are only two nurses left on staff, and the two nurses have literally moved into the building so that there is 24-hour coverage.
My dad has been allowed to resume the psoriasis medicine and the sores are getting better.
My dad keeps falling. Knowing that it is a very long time between him calling for assistance and a staff member coming to help him, I suspect that he gets impatient and tries to do whatever it is himself. He hasn’t hurt himself too badly as of yet. Ironically enough, a little over a year ago the state forced him into an assisted living facility against his will because he had fallen multiple times at home.
He started physical therapy shortly after his release to help him overcome his muscle atrophy. PT has not gone well, primarily because he is in excruciating pain from a pinched spinal cord and stiff from arthritis. He has been getting regular steroid shots for several years now, and was due for a shot when the lock-down started. In good news, my sister has convinced the assisted living facility that the steroid shot is “essential” for his PT, and he has an appointment scheduled for next week. My sister will drive him, and my dad is equally excited about the pain shot and seeing my sister.
His 83-year old girlfriend has fully recovered from COVID-19. She’s still in a convalescent home. In order to be allowed back into the facility, she needs three negative Coronavirus tests in a row (my dad only needed 2 since he never got sick). She’s had 4 tests so far: inconclusive, negative, inconclusive, positive. Even if the next 3 tests come back negative, she’s still looking at a solid 2 weeks before she can go back to the assisted living facility.
My dad still wants to die. I’ve offered to drive him to Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal, but he says he wants to go naturally…
What prompted me to put up the original post was a desire to start a discussion about the rights of the elderly. My dad has been angry ever since he was forced into assisted living -- his sovereignty was taken away from him simply because he is old. My dad was tormented in the nursing home “for his own protection as determined by the state.” My dad is currently being neglected in the assisted living facility “for his own protection.” My would have welcomed getting sick from COVID-19 and dying; he’s ready to go. He said this tormentation "for your own protection" is the worst thing he's ever gone through in his 87-years of life.
I want to make it clear that I am not bashing either of the facilities; they are doing the best that they can in such difficult times under very restrictive parameters. As far as I am concerned, anyone who signs up to be a caregiver is an angel. It is a hard job, both emotionally and physically. But I do think it is time to re-examine the questions of elderly rights and the elderly care system in our society.
I have realized that the silver lining of this COVID-19 crises is that it is bringing lot of broken systems that exist in our society to the forefront. As with elderly care, we’ve always known these issues exist, but it was easy to turn a blind-eye to them. But, now, they cannot be as easily ignored. A second example is exploitative debt collection practices. A third example is the fact that meat-packing plants were known to hire undocumented workers, exploiting them in unsanitary conditions. I could go on and on…
Things are looking extra ugly right now, and I believe that has a lot to do with the fact that we’re finally facing so many ugly things that we’ve ignored for decades. It’s looking even uglier as we watch different groups exploit the COVID-19 crises for their own benefit while the majority of us suffer… and these exploitative practices are yet another issue that we’ve ignored for decades. But even so, I am feeling hopeful that we will band together as a society and make the world a better place for everyone.
One of the ways that we need to band together is to stand up to the government’s attempts to shore up power. I am asking everyone to sign this petition opposing HR 6666, a bill to set up a national contact tracing system: https://www.change.org/p/karen-bass-petition-to-stop-h-r-6666-covid-19-testing-reaching-and-contacting-everyone-trace-act?signed=true
The wording on the petition is not the best because it makes it sound like the sole issue is tracing and testing. But for me, I’m more concerned about the vagueness of the wording. Even if you think tracing and testing is a good thing, the vagueness should give you pause; it will be easily abused by those in power. To me, HR 6666 feels like a pretense to lock-up political dissidents. HR 6666 allows for:
• Forced entrance into home without a warrant based on suspected exposure
• Indefinite quarantine based on suspected exposure with no test needed
• Unlimited number of times that you can be quarantined
• There is no definition of “contact,” so they can lock you up if your cell phone indicates that you passed someone infected on the other side of a major highway
• Due to HIPAA privacy laws, they can’t tell you who may have infected you, so “exposure” can be easily fabricated
• No exemption of people who have antibodies to COVID-19
• While this bill does not prohibit people from being removed from their homes for quarantine. There will be a lot of people abused in quarantine facilities, just like my dad was
For those of you who are pro-contact tracing, please take a moment to think about what happened to my dad. I think that people are naive if they think that “the system” will understand and deliver the kind of care that is best for each person's individual situation. To “the system,” my dad was just a number. His personal details (medical needs, etc.) didn't matter. It turned out that what “the system” determined was best for him was actually physically and emotionally debilitating. Me, my sister and my dad all tried our best to communicate that they were harming him, but “the system” didn’t care what we had to say. “The system” knew what was best – period. I guarantee that if this bill passes, horror stories like my dad's will become common.
If you’d like more info, here is a video that someone who took the contact tracing course posted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFUyZWw7qoc
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