Narratives of Nursing Home Care

For instance, regulations require all patients to lavish in the morning. Because the treat facility's water heating system has a finite amount of hot water available, the residents who were the last cleansed ever were forced to take cold showers: "A few of the to a greater extent frail were frightened just by the shower itself. For many, with brickly bones and highly sensitive body thermometers, it was an effort just to stand or sit underneath it" (136). Residents screaming in the showers was commonplace. But despite the residents' fears and discomfort, the showers were mandatory because state regulations required them.

new(prenominal) startling discovery that Diamond made is that the majority of residents in nursing homes are not, as the public assumes, "abandoned" in that location by their relatives. Most had spouses or children who visited them regularly. Others had simply outlived their relatives. Also, members of volunteer groups much(prenominal) as churches made regular visits to the homes to cheer the residents.

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of Diamond's book is the dynamic nature of nursing home residency. Residents were constantly moved, or under threat of movement, establish on their physical, mental, and financial stability. For instance, separate wards of nursing homes are consecrate to short-term, skilled-care wings and other wards are designated as Medicare and private-

Diamond, Timothy. Making Gray metallic: Narratives of Nursing national Care. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

My reaction to this book was strongly emotional. The germ told such compelling stories approximately the nursing home residents and the nursing assistants that I was moved to tears.

I suppose I set with the nursing home situation because in my culture, such facilities are not as widespread as they are in the United States. Most foreign cultures are based on extended families and the elderly are kept in the family domicile as long as medically feasible. On the other hand, once immigrants move to the United States they assimilate many aspects of American culture, and the institutionalization of the elderly is one aspect that is gaining popularity.

Making Gray Gold is recommended reading for any person in any scotch segment of American society. Millions of people who are saving for seclusion today have no clear idea about the nature of their future "golden years." The fate of the residents described in Diamond's book is the fate of all but the wealthiest Americans. The average American will be forced, because of ill-health or other circumstances, to live in one of the nursing homes Diamond describes. Some will be lucky enough to live in homes where humanistic set outweigh the bureaucratic red tape. Others will have the adventure to live in homes where residents are not afforded the dignity that should recognise with old age.

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