Older people are one of the groups that are most vulnerable to COVID-19. In order to protect them from it, many nursing homes have banned visitors from going inside. When family and friends visit their loved ones in nursing homes, they are able to check and make sure that their loved ones are receiving the care they need. Now, with people unable to visit with them, nursing home residents are more likely to not receive the care they need. Tony Chicotel, an attorney for the nonprofit California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, said, “My guess is there’s lots of terrible neglect going on that is harming people to levels that are akin to the virus, but we just don’t know.”

Neglect in nursing homes is not always the fault of the workers. It is often due to the people in charge who are not providing the workers with the equipment they need to do their job, the nursing homes being severely understaffed, and corrupt political leadership. Consider these facts of life about working in a nursing home. Workers have hidden what little cleaning supplies they received in the ceiling to make sure it lasted. Bedsheets have been ripped up to make washcloths. Workers have bought their own Clorox wipes. Staff members lacked proper PPE, so they walked around in garbage bags. All of these things happened even before COVID-19 started. Before COVID-19, nursing homes already received infrequent inspections to make sure that they were up to health standards. Now, with COVID-19, these inspections are not happening at all.

In a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, proper protections for COVID-19 were not taken, and the nursing home received multiple citations. This nursing home had 101 out of 180 residents infected with COVID-19. Many nurses left because they were sick or wanted to protect their families. Toward the end of the nursing home’s run, two night shift nurses were responsible for taking care of 50 residents. Astoundingly, people who work in nursing homes have not been considered a high priority for receiving PPE.

In New York, Governor Cuomo required nursing homes to readmit residents who had been sent to the hospital to be treated for COVID-19. And, in a March 25 order, nursing homes in New York were not allowed to test incoming residents for COVID-19. Governor Cuomo later signed a bill that would absolve nursing homes from lawsuits due to how COVID-19 was handled. When he received accusations that nursing home deaths were being undercounted in New York, he launched an in-house investigation. While the numbers were found to be undercounted, Governor Cuomo, instead of taking responsibility, pointed fingers at the federal government, nursing home workers, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

While physical neglect is definitely an issue to worry about, there is also the impact that the pandemic is having on the residents’ mental health. To enforce social distancing in the nursing homes, residents are confined to their rooms. They now eat their meals in their rooms instead of in the dining hall with other residents. Social activities for residents like arts and crafts, bingo, etc. are limited. These measures lead to residents having a lot of time alone. All this time alone allows for residents to dwell on negative thoughts. These negative thoughts are not good for the sake of the residents’ mental health, especially if the residents already suffer from mental illness.

Nursing home residents as a group are susceptible to neglect even in the best of times. The challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic put these vulnerable seniors even more at risk. As conscientious nursing home employees rise to meet these challenges, family members and friends of nursing home residents, along with government agencies, must do what they can to ensure their loved ones are being taken care of properly.