Mark Knows It All

If I learned nothing more during my late mother’s recent illness, I learned that the state of senior care in Ohio is abysmal. We as a society should be ashamed of what we have done to our senior citizens. As one who is looking at age 60 just down the pike, I am personally frightened for myself and my wife. With the huge number of aging baby boomers just over the horizon, it will only get worse. I have come to the conclusion that nursing homes are nothing more than a place to warehouse people until they die. Minimally, they are depressing. Many of them are smelly with poor ventilation. Some of them are dirty. They are grossly understaffed. Most of them are over-crowded. There is a shortage of beds in any of the facilities that are tolerable, and the mad dash to find a place for one’s loved one is something akin to herding cows into a pen…you take what you can get. Physicians work for nursing homes on a full time basis, or close to it. They visit the patient once each month, and in betw...