Before COVID-19 hit our country — and hit it hard — nursing facilities and our elderly were seldom on our minds. At least, they weren’t top-of-mind. During this pandemic, we have seen thousands of nursing facility residents die. These losses are tragic, even more so because it seems that the risks to our elderly remain, but the answers of what is being done to protect them are hard to find.
Nursing facilities were challenged by the nature of the virus in the early days of the pandemic, and those challenges continue every day. It began with the simple fact that nursing facilities have many visitors and caregivers. Prior to our awareness that asymptomatic carriers of the virus may — and very likely did — heavily contribute to the spread of the virus, our nursing facilities were especially hard hit. We can now all see that — in part due to a high volume of visitors, medical professionals and caregivers — our nursing facilities and our elderly were put in an increasingly vulnerable position. Even when it became apparent that our elderly were suffering the most, our federal government did not make nursing facilities a priority for funding and supplies — especially PPE and testing supplies. There was no immediate response or sense of urgency.
Finally, after months of lagging attention, the federal government began providing supplies, according to NPR, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency was scheduled to send two weeks’ worth of PPE supplies to every nursing facility in the nation by July 4. The CARES Act has provided the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services with nearly $4.9 billion for nursing facilities — much less than the $10 billion requested by the health care industry. Through as late as May, supply kits delivered by FEMA did not include N-95 masks, nor provide supplies for assisted-living communities.
HHS has recognized the life-threatening risks facing the elderly, stating, “During this pandemic, nursing homes have faced unique challenges as their population of high-risk seniors are more vulnerable to respiratory pathogens like COVID-19.” And the numbers show that, while most young people recover, the elderly are dying.
According to Stat News, immunologists have identified some of the specific ways the immune system changes with age, which provides some insight into why the virus’s impact on the elderly is so severe. As we age, our bodies produce fewer T cells, which normally generate virus-fighting chemicals after being called into action by another group of cells. Like a captain leading his soldiers, these other cells point out the enemy (in this case, coronavirus) and direct the T cells to generate their virus-fighting chemicals. As we age, the “captain” of cells becomes almost inaudible. By the time the T cells get the message, it too often means that too few virus-fighting chemicals are created, and are created too slowly. It is not surprising, therefore, that the elderly — from a scientific standpoint alone — are more vulnerable than every other age category.
Mark Parkinson, the president and CEO of the American Health Care Association, echoed a similar concern in a recent column he wrote for Morning Consult, the data and analysis information tech company: “For too long, the public health system has ignored long-term care providers. The results are tragic, but predictable. We have been calling for help from the beginning of the pandemic. Long-term care facilities are doing everything possible to stop the spread of this virus. But we need help. It means saving the lives of the greatest generation. We owe them everything we can muster, and we must do it together.”
Knowing that our elderly are our most vulnerable citizens, our government needs to respond with everything possible to fix the original mistake of not responding quickly enough. Sufficient volumes of PPE and testing supplies need to be dispersed promptly, as do additional funds. Considering the surging infection rates we’ve seen as we have attempted the rocky reopening of our economy and communities, how can nursing facilities continue to provide for our elderly without these items and without the necessary funding?
Bill Freeman
Bill Freeman is the owner of FW Publishing, the publishing company that produces the Nashville Scene, Nfocus, the Nashville Post and Home Page Media Group in Williamson County.
