Letters | The essential frailty of life in elderly care homes
- Leaving ageing family members in care homes often abandons them to the whims of corporate owners, with governments reluctant to intervene in an avidly capitalist culture
What I admire about some non-Western cultures, including in East Asia, is their general belief in and practice of not placing aged family members in senior care homes.
As a result, family carers do not have to worry about elderly loved ones being left vulnerable by cost-cutting measures taken by some care home business owners to maximise profits.
As for care home neglect, it was present here in Canada before Covid-19. However, we did not fully comprehend the degree until the pandemic really hit, as we discovered with the retirement home Résidence Herron in Dorval, Quebec, about 10 months ago.
An investigation concluded it suffered from “organisational negligence”. The home ceased operations last November.
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Business mentality and, by extension, collective society allowed the well-being of our oldest family members to be decided by corporate profit-margin concerns. Our national and provincial governments mostly dared not intervene, perhaps because they feared being labelled as anti-business in our avidly capitalist culture.
But, as clearly evidenced by the many needless Covid-19 deaths among care home residents, big business does not always know or practise what is best for its consumers, including the most vulnerable who have little or no voice.
Frank Sterle Jnr, British Columbia
