When Laura Fraser and her sisters determined their 96-year-old father needed to move into assisted living, they found a place that was "good on paper." It was near family, he'd have a private room with a mountain view, and it "seemed nice." A room cost about $6,500 a month, a fraction of what it would cost to pay a home care aide to stay with him full-time. What he experienced instead was "indifferent care" at a sharply higher price, and his and Fraser's experience raises questions about the promises and realities of elder care in America.
In a lengthy piece for the Guardian she details factors at play: "staffing shortages, the increased medical and psychological needs of residents, sparse and varied regulations, and, often, corporate environments that prioritize profits over resident care and quality of life." Her father, a retired physician, fell numerous times while at the facility—part of a major corporate-owned chain—often when trying to get to the toilet when no one came to assist him. His daughters were paying for that assistance: The monthly bill ended up being about $11,000 once extra charges were added, including $8 a day for incontinence care and $23 a day for doling out his medications.
One of Fraser's sisters, who was caring full time for a husband with cancer, spent hours a day at the facility "trying to prod administrators and overworked staff to give him more of the promised care for which we were paying dearly, but without making so much fuss that they'd evict him." (Read the full piece, which details the reform advocates and researchers are pushing for, the actions some families have taken, alternative options, and Fraser's own plan for herself.) (This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)
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