My mother lives in “assisted living.” Her residence, which used to called Anthology Senior Living, but which has bought and rebranded Brandywine, is expensive. Like most assisted living facilities, it offers levels of care, and they charge additional for higher levels and services. Needing help showering and bathing, for example, goes on one level of care. Needing help feeding yourself is another level. And so forth.
Since the recent transition, my mother (who is competent, and makes her own decisions) has gotten no update on her levels of care. She’s just been told her base rent is going up, but not why. And she has asked for (and not been given) an explanation of the costs. This is a reasonable request. She pays over $7,000 a month.
What does $7,000 a month get you? Reader. It gets you a one bedroom, one bathroom, roughly 500 sq foot apartment. The bathroom is accessible and large and full of railings. There is a fridge and microwave, but no stove. All meals are served in the dining room. But if you need a tray delivered to your room, it’s a $10 charge (unless there is a medical necessity that you can prove).
Someone helps with laundry once a week, but either clothes or sheets, not both. Someone helps with bathing once a week. Anything my mom orders is brought to her apartment and left inside on the floor. Someone comes in to vacuum and clean and empty her trash.
She has someone help her take her medications. This is a program that is an additional $400 a month. It does not include the cost of her meds.
Now, let’s talk about what’s NOT included. When my mom has items delivered to her apartment, they are not unboxed and put away, and she can’t do it on her own. If she orders soda, the cans are not removed from the carton (she has arthritis, and this is difficult for her).
No one helped her wrap Christmas presents. The transportation van only runs Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and my mom has doctors appointments every week. If her appointment falls out of range of the time the van runs, she needs to schedule her own transportation. They do not help her schedule it. It is usually $150 per trip.
No one helps her keep track of her medical appointments, and she has a primary care doctor, an oncologist, an endocrinologist, a nephrologist, and a cardiologist. She has standing appointments every week. The nurses at her facility often do not understand her medical conditions. She has corrected them on dosages of her medications.
Recently, she needed an urgent appointment and her oncology nurse called me because my mom wasn’t answering her phone, and Brandywine changed their front desk number and HADN’T UPDATED IT on their website, nor did they notify any of the residents or caregivers or healthcare providers that they had changed their phone number. The nurse eventually found the number on their Facebook page in order to ask them to send someone to check on my mother and schedule her appointment.
The phone number, Reader, still isn’t updated.
These are moments that me think that I am going insane. How can an assisted living facility NOT HAVE AN ACCURATE PUBLISHED PHONE NUMBER? For $7,000 a month from each of their residents, you’d think they’d be able to update their website. Or, GASP, email their residents and caregivers.
My mom doesn’t have a choice about living in assisted living. I live out of state, and she doesn’t want to move to my state, away from her friends and her community. My brother has deep psychological problems and doesn’t provide care (he unfriended us both on Facebook, Reader. He didn’t go see her for Christmas. And he’s threatened me and he destroyed property at her house. So yeah.). She needs help and can no longer live alone. She has mobility issues and medical issues. She decided that assisted living would be worth it.
And this is where we fuck over our aging population, Reader. She needs to have an accessible space, with people to help her. But those people do the bare minimum. The facility, like most facilities, are understaffed, and poorly managed, and profit driven. She must use a walker. She needs help in the shower. She can’t lift things or cook. And I don’t live there, so I can’t give her the help she needs.
Reader, the only way should could have stayed at her house was to renovate it to make it accessible, and to have live-in care. And she didn’t want to renovate her house.
Honestly, Reader, the choices weren’t great, but assisted living made sense. And the previous management was pretty good. But this new company, Reader, is terrible. And I don’t know what we’re going to do about it.
But here’s the thing. If she lived at a hotel (which includes a lot of the same amenities and services, honestly), and she paid $150 a night, she’s pay $4,200 a month. And if she hired a nurse at $30 an hour, for a 40 hour week, that’s $4,800 a month. And the thing is, extended stay hotels would be cheaper. Mortgages are cheaper. Apartments are cheaper. And she doesn’t need a nurse constantly (or even for 40 hours a week) by her side. She just needs some extra help.
Why the fuck have we put our senior citizens who need assistance in this kind of position? She could almost live in a hotel and hire a nurse and pay the same as she’s paying now. How does that make any kind of sense?
I’m mad now (well, I was mad before, Reader), and I’m rambling, but we are doing such a tremendous disservice to our elders, and I get so mad I can’t breath. What are people who didn’t manage to save up enough money supposed to do? My mom is lucky to have funds to pay for her care. But not everyone has that. I certainly won’t be able to afford it when it’s my turn.
We have to do better. We need affordable, assisted living options, that actually assist people. We need medical transportation and help coordinating appointments and help unpacking groceries and we need to have higher expectations of care. We should at least expect the bare level of communication from facilities. We should at least expect them to publish their phone numbers correctly.
And have means to hold them accountable if they don’t.
This is so frustrating. It's an indictment of our culture and country that we disregard our elders like this. The great and sad irony is that we all will become old one day (that's if we're lucky).