In a Japanese Nursing Home, Some Workers Are Babies [nytimes.com]

I’ve always admired some non-Western cultures for their general belief in and practice of not placing their aged family members in seniors care homes. As a result, their family caregivers did/do not have to worry over those loved-ones being left vulnerable by cost-cutting measures taken by some care-home business owners to maximize profits.

Like with some U.S. states, there was nursing home neglect in Canada before Covid-19, although the actual extent was made horrifically clear only after the pandemic really hit. A most morbid example of the consequences of such neglect was the CHSLD Résidence Herron long-term care home in Quebec about 11 months ago, where 47 residents perished. The neglect — which eventually resulted in abandonment by overwhelmed and fearful staff — had become so extreme that the Canadian Armed Forces got involved.

Maximizing profits by risking the health or lives of product consumers will likely always be a significant part of the nature of the big business beast. Therefore, families may still have reason to worry over their loved-ones being left vulnerable by measures taken by some long-term care-home businesses to maximize profits.

Western business mentality and, by extension, collective society, allowed the well-being of our oldest family members to be decided by corporate profit-margin measures. And our governments mostly dared not intervene, perhaps because they feared being labelled as anti-business in our avidly capitalist culture. I find astonishing that our society still allows the blatant commercialization of our dear senior citizens, even after the care-home COVID horrors. Is nothing off limits to big business interests?!