More from this marvelous book, Being Mortal.
Gawande tells the story of an eighty-nine year old
woman who, after falling twice within one week, made the decision to leave her
condominium and move (‘be admitted’ as the medical parlance goes) to a nursing
home. I tell the rest of the story here
from BEING MORTAL, pages 74-75.
“She picked the facility herself. It had excellent
ratings and nice staff, and her daughter lived nearby. She had moved in the
month before I met her. She told me she was glad to be in a safe place – if
there’s anything a decent nursing home is built for, it is safety. But she was
wretchedly unhappy.
“The trouble was that she expected more from life
than safety. ‘I know I can’t do what I used to,’ she said, ‘but this feels like
a hospital, not a home.’
“It is a near-universal reality. Nursing home
priorities are matters like avoiding bedsores and maintaining residents’ weight
– important medical goals, to be sure, but they are means, not ends. The woman had left an airy apartment she
furnished herself for a small beige hospital-like room with a stranger for a
roommate. Her belongings were stripped down to what she could fit into the one
cupboard and shelf they gave her. Basic matters, like when she went to bed,
woke up, dressed, and ate were subject to the rigid schedule of institutional
life. She couldn't have her own furniture or a cocktail before dinner because
it wasn't safe.
“There was so much more she felt she could do in
her life. ‘I want to be helpful, play a role,’ she said. She used to make her
own jewelry, volunteer at the library. Now her main activities were bingo, DVD
movies, and other forms of passive group entertainment. The things she missed
most, she told me, were her friendships, privacy, and a purpose to her
days. Nursing homes have come a long way
from the firetrap warehouses of neglect they used to be. But it seems we’ve
succumbed to a belief that once you lose your physical independence, a life of
worth and freedom is simply not possible.”
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