If Martin Luther King, Jr. was alive today, he would be 86. If he was like many elderly black Americans, he might well end up in a nursing home ranked lower in quality and with less well-trained nursing staff. The facility would likely house a disproportionately larger proportion of people of color and on Medicaid than higher-quality nursing homes.
The disparities are easy to miss. After all, what happens in nursing homes stays in nursing homes, invisible to the rest of us. The only ones who see what’s going on are the patients, family and friends, and staff. If people report lousy conditions in the homes, nursing homes often vilify them. In fact, some would argue that the industry hides behind a smokescreen of patient privacy. Yes, there are inspections. Are they sufficient to drive equal care? Apparently not. Overall, the nursing home industry has changed little in terms of providing quality care for minority elders on par with what white elders get.
[For more of this story, written by Laura Newman, go to http://www.patientpov.org/agin...egated-still-unequal]
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