• jerry@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I worked at a nursing home as a cook, I guess it was a nice one? We had a nutritionist and made like cafeteria food, then chopped half of it up for the people who had problems, then puréed it for the ones who couldn’t feed themselves.

    Profit has become a tyrant. We used to make people happy in its name, now we shape everything in its service.

    • Tigbitties@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Profit has become a tyrant

      Unfortunately, I disagree. I think it’s become hero. It shouldn’t but it is.

  • Azamandriel@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I worked for years in a nursing home and I can tell you that it is total bullshit. Everything is the lowest quality at the highest markup. Let me assure you that the staffing at 99% of these places is so low that the residents are waiting 20-30 min to use the restroom and basically live trapped in a bed with little to no assistance.

    • endlessloop@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      When my grandmother was unable to live on her own we moved her up to where we live. She had a good amount of money stashed away, so shopped every nice facility in town, and picked what seemed like the nicest one. While I would say the food didn’t look as terrible as the picture in the OP, it wasn’t much better. Multiple other issues at these places though, staff not helping, not giving meds on time, falling and not getting assistance for hours. One of the worst was falling, having to go to the hospital, and never letting emergency contacts know. We found out when the hospital called, because her charts didn’t seem to match up. Turns out they sent the wrong charts to the hospital. Thank god she didn’t have any allergies. We ended up moving her to another facility that was even more expensive, and promised none of these things would happen there. Turns out that wasn’t true, so my parents finally ended up moving to a new home where they could finish the basement and build an apartment for her with full time care hired to come by.

      I used to always think if you had the financial part of old age figured out you’d be okay, boy was I wrong.

    • berkeleyblue@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I just talked with a coworker about this today. Her dad lost his leg because they failed to respond to a foot infection and they then also blamed him for not telling them soon enough… It’s disgusting how we treat the elderly in those facilities (and here we pay double those 3k btw…) I was forced to work in a nursing home for 2 months as part of my civil duty (military service substitution). I couldn’t do it anymore, it just kills you how they treat some people. Those are grown adults and I was told they can’t have a small knife to cut vegetables, not because they were unsafe with them but just as a matter of policy. Others where given clothes to fold that afterwards where thrown back into the same bucket that they came from to be folded again tomorrow. They were lied to and treated with less respect than little kids… And then the whole COVID thing in addition to that where they couldn’t see anyone and had to endure this idiocy basically 24/7.

      I really never thought about suicide but if I end up in such a facility when I’m old, I might have to reevaluate my stance on that… that’s not living, that’s dying in installments while being drained of your money….

  • malloc@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Disgusting. Some of the SNF (skilled nursing facilities) in good ole USA are just criminal organizations

    @[email protected] appreciate the shoutout. Oddly enough I just happened to stumble upon this post. Did not see this in my “Mentions”

    • taigaman@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Oh no. Please don’t tell me that’s what that diseased morsel in the top left corner is.

  • Creecher10@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Looks about right. I worked in a retirement home for 4 years. 2 in the kitchen and 2 doing maintenance. These residents were paying upwards of $10k a month and the food was fucking awful 90% of the time. Not only is the food super shitty but they dont even get all their meals included in their monthly rent so if they wanted 3 meals a day (Breakfast, lunch, dinner) then you had to choose which meal you wanted to pay for out of pocket. These retirement/nursing homes are predatory as hell. I know its not possible for everyone but if you love your parents, do them a favor and keep them out of these homes.

    • Piecemakers@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      People leaving USA… Maybe we need to leave…

      There, FTFY. 🤓🤘🏼 There’s more than enough reasons these days. Frankly, the main one keeping me here for a little while longer is just the youngin’ aging into independence. We’re GTFO after that. 🤌🏼

  • MolvanianDentist@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Appalled that the nursing home experience being poor is so widespread. Where I live, nursing homes are largely private enterprises receiving government funds and are poorly regulated. Residents often have to take out reverse mortgages if they own their homes to fund their nursing home residencies. And yes, the food is still often that bad.

    • DadHands@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Where I’m at, the nursing homes change ownership every few years to avoid responsibility for their negligence

    • Thadrax@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This doesn’t look appetizing at all, however the amount doesn’t seem that unrealistic for old people.

      • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m not sure about that. The veggies are relatively low in calories. The chicken and dumplings would be really high in calories but that’s a very small amount.

        My best guess is this plate is less than 200-250 calories. We’re missing a lot of detail here though. It might not be three equal calorie meals per day. This might not be what your average person gets someone might have just pissed in their Wheaties.

        Assuming that’s one of three daily meals with equal calories, that’s probably about half the calories even someone in total lethargy would need to survive.

    • Fondots@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      As a somewhat active person in my 30s, I would not find that to be a satisfying meal, but your caloric needs change throughout your life. Most adults would need roughly about a 2000 Calorie/day diet, but depending on activity level, age, gender, height, metabolism, etc. that can vary pretty widely. A larger guy living an active lifestyle may need in excess of 3000 Calories, a smaller girl with a sedentary lifestyle may only need 1800 or so.

      Seniors tend to have lower caloric needs than adults, and in a nursing home setting, many of them are probably living pretty sedentary lives (many of them probably physically couldn’t be very active even if they wanted to, that’s part of why some of them are in a nursing home in the first place)

      Plus many of us are accustomed to eating meals that are well in excess of what we actually need, I’m pretty sure we’ve all seen what a recommended serving size of steak looks like- 3oz, about the size of a deck of cards, I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever eaten a steak that small in my life, and I don’t purposely seek out huge steaks.

      Then you also have issues with dementia patients where just getting them to eat anything at all can sometimes be an issue.

      And of course, you need to be mindful of health conditions, and very healthy people don’t tend to end up in nursing homes. They may have allergies, food sensitivities, diabetes, etc. that need to be accounted for, health conditions or medications that interact with different foods, they need to be mindful of potential cross-contamination, or that a confused old person may not fully understand why they can or can’t have certain foods and may try to eat someone else’s meal that could cause them to have health issues. So a relatively bland and safe menu with carefully portioned servings kind of becomes necessary, especially when you need to be serving dozens or hundreds of people all at once every day.

      And some of them just have pretty bland tastes and limited appetites, not everyone is a foodie or gourmand who loves to eat, some regard food as just a necessary fuel for them to keep living. And some people think that a bit of salt and pepper it over seasoning (my mom, who is hopefully another 20 or so years away from needing a nursing home, thinks that a McChicken is “too spicy” and would probably think this meal is great)

  • Clbull@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    My ex (we broke up a year ago and don’t talk) worked as a nurse in an expensive nursing home. Some of the stories she’s told me about how they treat staff and even patients are shocking.