The story in October about Chicago Reporter staff testifying about nursing home inequities reminded me about other recent articles about nursing home problems.
The Reporter’s investigation revealed that Illinois has a lot of poorly rated black nursing homes, but the problems aren’t just limited to those in black areas.
Many of these nursing homes have been found to be housing mentally ill felons without adequate safeguards to protect their elderly residents. These places are called nursing homes.
When I think of the term home, the first thing that comes to mind is privacy and security.
Putting mentally ill felons into the same facility as our family members without adequate safeguards to protect them is just a gamble on their life every day. That is not what I think of when the term home comes to mind, and that is not what our senior citizens deserve.
I hope the Reporter’s testimony focuses on the problems of all nursing homes and how we can keep our most defenseless members of our society safe.
Brian Meslar
Chicago Ridge