This week the New York Times published, both in its online The New Old Age blog and in the newspaper's print edition, a shocking and upsetting story about discrimination in a a high-end Virginia continuing care retirement community (CCRC). Residents who reside in the assisted living or nursing home sections of the CCRC are being excluded from dining with the 'able-bodied' residents, even if they are cognitively unimpaired, and even if that means they cannot sit with their able-bodied spouse.
The article quotes an administrator who proffers ridiculous excuses for the policy, but most shocking is a quote from an eighty-year-old resident who is past president of the facility's Resident Advisory Council, who, the article says, "took pains to point out that three independent living residents with health problems are also excluded from the dining room, while many who do use it require wheelchairs or walkers."
“It happened to me twice in one week that somebody at the next table threw up,” requiring hasty clean-up by the maintenance staff, she said. Another time, she said, someone’s wheelchair got tangled in a tablecloth at Sunday brunch and nearly pulled all the food off the buffet table.
“I should be able to have what we call quiet enjoyment,” she said.
The Times story generated many outraged comments online. Several of the commenters noted that this appalling discrimination, so similar to high-school cliquishness, also masks able-bodied residents' fear of seeing what awaits them down the road. One poster wrote,
There I go for the grace of God. It's best to include everyone who lives in the same home in the same dining room. It's clearly discriminatory to say you are not welcome anymore because you had a stroke or the dementia got worse or you are arthritic. One can choose where to sit. We all go out the same way we came in: depending on each other. Look the droolers in the eye and say good evening. Small acts of love are performed in these dining rooms by the grace of humans.
Several commenters noted that religious-affiliated CCRC's (Kendal, and Episcopal-linked communities) have policies designed to ensure the continued mingling of residents with and without disabilities.
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