[caption id="attachment_335179" align="alignright" width="311"] Mike Dark of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform[/caption]

COVID-19 is everywhere these days and no place has been hit harder than nursing homes. Estimates are that up to one-third of all COVID deaths have been in nursing homes.

 

But nobody knows for sure, because the federal government and many states aren't collecting this statistic.  And, about one-quarter of people in those nursing homes are under age 65 and have disabilities.

 

[1]What is it about nursing homes that makes them so dangerous?  What will happen to those who live inside them as the pandemic progresses?

Host Mark Romoser talks with Mike Dark from the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform [2].

With a commentary by Shelley Berman.

Mask photo by: https://bit.ly/2WCEfcR

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COMING UP

Online Town Hall: Crisis in Care in SF Nursing Homes and Other Congregate Facilities

Thursday, May 14th, 11 AM

Please join advocates for elders and people with disabilities, public health advocates, concerned community members, and City officials in an online Town Hall on problems of care in nursing homes and other congregate facilities (group homes, board & care homes, assisted living facilities, homeless shelters, SROs, jails etc).

Click here [3] to sign up!

More information about the issue:

The huge concentrations of COVID cases and deaths in care facilities has been a national disgrace. San Francisco is no exception. Contributing factors include no provision of social distancing, the lack of testing, lack of formal or informal oversight, lack of transparency in reporting cases and deaths to families and the public, and the long-standing low-staffing, low pay, and lack of safe conditions and PPE for care workers. [4]

In California, these problems are made worse by (1) the state's order that nursing homes accept recovering COVID patients, (2) proposed immunity for nursing homes from criminal or civil penalties for COVID deaths during the pandemic, and (3) proposed state triage guidelines if hospitals become overwhelmed that could discriminate against older people, people with disabilities, poor people, fat people, and people of color.

Nursing facilities are nearly all for-profit, and money must not be a motivating factor in whether or not to provide the best care possible. In addition, local and state government must step in more aggressively to protect people. The low priority placed on the lives of older people and disabled people living in facilities is a sign of ageism and ableism, oppression based on age and disability.

Please attend to learn about these problems, declare that ageism and ableism are unacceptable in our community, and join the dialogue to prevent future tragedies.

Sponsored by the California Care Rationing Coalition: Senior and Disability Action, California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, Gray Panthers, California Alliance of Retired Americans, Hand in Hand, and many more

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Fat-Assed Prepper Survival Tips for Preparing for a Coronavirus Quarantine [5]

Twenty-three pages of practical information and lists of resources, from how to disinfect a wheelchair to surviving a hospital visit.  Highly recommended.  (With thanks to Sins Invalid [6] for publishing this and other excellent and timely resources on their website)

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This program produced & hosted by Mark Romoser.

[1] https://bit.ly/2WCEfcR

[2] http://www.canhr.org/

[3] https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1i3BqTMgFITuVSWPAQbxqw7th4cqWJ3Omh5D9wQCrMYM/edit

[4] https://freesvg.org/by/j4p4n

[5] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Zz7EchIvq05wFDZ1EysJkGiMJTpzXxi998M2Ij2hYhg/edit?ts=5e69c961#heading=h.c7ae8c2fdudh

[6] https://www.sinsinvalid.org/