My grandfather once politely requested in all sincerity that, if he were even unable to take care of himself, I or another relative escort him into the woods and blow his head off with a shotgun in lieu of sticking him in an “assisted living” facility.
I agreed, and I hope that someone will do the same for me if it ever comes to that.
(Blessedly, he’s still going strong at 85 or something like that.)
I remember, as a child, being dragged into those horrendous places by my grandmother to visit an ailing friend of hers. The sterile, fluorescent hallways always carried the stench of formaldehyde and death, which I recoiled at.
Recently, Google fed me a news item about a listeria outbreak in nursing home techno-slop.
Via ABC News (emphasis added):
“Cartons of frozen shakes sold to nursing homes and other institutions are being recalled after an outbreak of listeria linked to the products.
The supplemental shakes are labeled under the brands Lyons ReadyCare and Sysco Imperial and were sold to institutional customers, including hospitals and long-term care facilities, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said listeria cases linked to the products date to 2018 but investigators had been previously unable to identify the source. Some 38 people were infected with listeria, including 11 who died. The FDA’s investigation is still underway.”
“Lyons ReadyCare” and “Sysco Imperial” struck me as particularly unappetizing names for purveyors of corporate slop, so I looked up what their “supplemental shakes” actually consist of.
Related: Are Cheerios Chemically Castrating the American Public?
Hold on to your hats.
Via Lyons ReadyCare, the ingredients list for “Chocolate Frozen Shake,” Item #1734 (emphasis added):
“Ingredients: Nonfat Milk, Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Maltodextrin, Corn Oil, Water, Contains 2% or less of Soy Protein Isolate, Whey Protein Concentrate, Sugar, Cocoa Processed with Alkali, Mono and Diglycerides, Guar Gum, Xanthan Gum, Carrageenan, Locust Bean Gum, Natural and Artificial Flavor.”
When three of your top five ingredients are industrial, processed corn concoctions and the rest are mostly industrial food additives like xanthan gum (also used in toilet bowl cleaners), you might not be providing your nursing home charges optimal nutrition.
Related: ‘Lab-Grown’ Meat Increases Blood Pressure, Inflammation, Depression: Study
Similarly, I ran across this Dr. Berg video wherein I learned that, out of a sample size of 100 nursing home residents/prisoners, individuals are taking an average of 48 medications, with some prescribed as many as 91.
“Please join me in welcoming Hal Cranmer and Claud Covaci! Claud is the CEO of a software company that manages the medications people take in assisted living homes. In a sampling of 100 residents, the average resident is on 48 medications. Some residents were even taking up to 91 medications! This isn’t healthcare.
In Hal’s assisted living homes, he implements programs to help people get off their medications. Many of his residents have seen a 50% decrease in medication usage. Hal focuses on diet and doesn’t serve ultra-processed foods in his facilities.”
THIS HAS GOT TO STOP!!
I looked into these figures a little more, and found a cornucopia of research backing them up.
Via Springer (emphasis added):
“Medication use among nursing home residents (NHRs) is very common. Indeed, in nursing homes (NHs), polypharmacy is highly prevalent, with 91%, 74% and 65% of NHRs taking more than five, nine and 10 medications, respectively [1]. These rates of polypharmacy are higher than what has been reported in home-dwelling older adults (27.0–59.0% taking 5 or more medications [1]). Factors associated with polypharmacy among NHRs include age, cognitive status, number of prescribers, dependency and length of stay in the NH [1].
Polypharmacy, together with other factors such as altered pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, and complexity of the medication use process, makes the safe use of medications for NHRs highly challenging [2]. Reported rates of adverse drug events (ADEs) in NHs range from 1.89 to 10.8 per 100 resident-months [3]. Medication errors (MEs) are common, involving 16–27% of NHRs in studies evaluating all types of MEs and 13–31% of NHRs in studies evaluating MEs occurring at transfer from and to other settings of care.”
These otherwise shocking stats make sense when you understand the incentive structure:
· You’re a nursing home attendant making maybe $15/hr.
· You have a patient that won’t stop nagging you for this or that.
· Maybe your moral compass is unaligned.
· So you shoot them up with some benzos and they shut their pie-holes.
· You spend the rest of your workday in peace.
· They don’t complain because there’s no one to complain to who cares or will take them seriously; better yet, maybe they don’t even know what’s happening to them, a prerequisite for complaining.
· No skin off your back — it’s not your grandma you’re putting on ice.
So, please, let me double-down on my plea: I’d rather take a swan dive off of a 10-storey rooftop than spend a day in one of these biomedical dungeons.
Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
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