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My grandmother, along with many other seniors in this country are dying of COVID-19 without even contracting the virus.
My grandmother, along with many other seniors in this country are dying of COVID-19 without even contracting the virus.
For the last four months, she and the rest of the residents in her care facility have been under a strict quarantine. 0 residents have tested positive & just six employees have contracted it. Considering how other facilities have been decimated by this, that should be good news.
The problem is, the quarantine is killing the residents. They aren't allowed to leave their rooms, interact with anyone besides their nurses and we are all finding out how little of a substitute a Zoom call is for human interaction. Imagine not leaving a room for FOUR months.
In early March my grandma took a depression test and scored a 2/27. Earlier this month she took it again and scored a 21/27, failing to answer the question if she felt she would be better off dead. She's far from alone in this struggle.
What's the solution? Something. I don't know what it is, but I do know that it isn't nothing, which is what her facility and way too many others have decided is appropriate.
I understood in the first month or two that there wasn't much we could expect as far as a way to provide her with some much needed interaction. However the lack of a plan as we enter fourth month of this has been deeply concerning and is killing these people.
Whether it's the private sector or a public sector solution, something needs to be done. They need to get out of their rooms, they need to see their families and they need something to live for. They deserve so much better than this, and time has already run out for many.
In an effort to save the elderly from a quick death, we have subjected them to a slow death of depression and brutal isolation. They are spending their final days in a solitary confinement of sorts, and it is shameful how this continues.
