MICHAEL HALL: Nursing home, assisted living employees forgotten heroes

In New York, people step out onto their balconies each night to applaud first responders and hospital emergency room professionals. Every night on television, we repeat our gratitude. I believe that there is another set of professionals that we should also applaud.

As the public guardian in Dougherty County and most of the counties that touch Dougherty County, my work over the last 35 years has taken me to skilled nursing care facilities (nursing homes) and intermediate nursing care facilities (assisted living and personal care homes) on a regular basis.

I think that the people working to care for the elderly in nursing homes and assisted living facilities are unsung heroes.

Doctors, nurses and other professional personnel working in hospitals are privileged to see the product of their labors. The sick and the injured come and they leave, in most cases, cured or healed. The satisfaction for the professionals who care for them is part of why they chose those professions.

The professionals who care for the elderly in nursing homes and assisted living facilities rarely, if ever, get to enjoy that satisfaction. For permanent residents, there is really no light at the end of the tunnel. The professionals who care for these residents know that, for all their skills, care and compassion, those that they care for will not see a brighter tomorrow.

The coronavirus epidemic seems to be working its worst in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. This should not be a surprise.

Residents tend to be either physically compromised, and thus particularly susceptible to this terrible disease, and sometimes also persons whose mental facilities have deteriorated, and are therefore unable to assist in their own care by social distancing, washing their hands and wearing masks, or to appreciate the care they are receiving.

How very depressing it must be to care for those who are particularly susceptible to coronavirus and also may be totally unable to cooperate with their caregivers to avoid contagion. Yet these caregivers continue to come to work and continue to struggle to protect those placed in their charge. They continue to risk their own health in order to help those who cannot help themselves. It should not be a surprise that working in a nursing home or assisted living facility is probably the most dangerous occupation in our country today.

Nobody bothers to accumulate statistics about infection among nursing home and assisted living caregivers. I believe that, if there were statistics available, the risk that these caregivers are taking would be shocking.

Everyone who has a loved one or a friend in a nursing home or assisted living facility should at least say thank you to these unremarked heroes.