mordechai9000Private equity turned vulnerable elderly people into human ATMs
My parents ended up being forced by circumstances to move into a retirement home about five years ago. Fortunately, the place turned out to be run by people who mostly cared about their clients and so my parents' lives were basically OK, except that the food sucked (which AFAICT is par for the course at retirement homes). But a few months ago the place was acquired by a different company, which is trying to squeeze out higher profits. Staffing and services are being cut, and prices are going up. Even the food got worse, which I didn't think was even possible. The response when someone complains is, "If you don't like it you are free to leave."
Yeah, right. My barely mobile 90-year-old parents, one of whom has Parkinson's, are just going to pack up and go. They know perfectly well that they have a captive audience.
Thankfully, my mother died before the acquisition, and my father died last week, only a few months after the acquisition, so I don't have to deal with this any more. But caveat emptor: if you ever go into a retirement home, think about what will happen if they change ownership. Even if it looks great, or even acceptable, now, there is no guarantee that it will still be great, or even acceptable, tomorrow, unless you somehow manage to negotiate such a guarantee. I have no idea what a contract provision like that would even look like. But I am going to be facing this problem myself some day, so I'd love to hear ideas.
The biggest sign something is broken is when someone writes: "Thankfully, my mother died before the acquisition, and my father died last week, only a few months after the acquisition, so I don't have to deal with this any more."
Depressing to read. I'm not sure on which side.
To be fair, my mother had cancer and my father had Parkinson's, and that was a much bigger factor in their ultimate quality of life than any deficiencies in the retirement home they found themselves in. So I don't mean "thankfully" in the sense that "thankfully they died prematurely so they didn't have to suffer under their home's new management", I mean it, "Thankfully the natural course of their lives delayed their deaths so that they were minimally affected by the new management."
But yeah, it kinda sucks, and not just for the residents who are still there. It sucks for the rank-and-file staff as well, most of whom still really care about their clients, but who now have to answer to people who absolutely do not care about anything other than money.