To the Editor:
Re “The Fatal Loneliness of Nursing Homes” (editorial, Dec. 30):
I applaud you for calling attention to loneliness as a public health issue. Having studied loneliness at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, I am concerned that weighing damage from prolonged isolation on one hand with the risks of Covid-19 on the other is a choice between Scylla and Charybdis.
However, this conundrum is not limited to nursing homes. All of us have felt the pain of separation in the past nine months, and loneliness was deemed an epidemic before that. One national study reported that 61 percent of adults were lonely.
If because of the pandemic we appreciate more our relationships, better understand their role in our health and take action to improve social well-being in our communities, then perhaps we can emerge like Odysseus with calmer waters ahead.
New York’s bill by State Senator Rachel May, which would expand compassionate care visits at nursing homes, is progress in that direction.
Kasley Killam
San Francisco
To the Editor:
Tragically you couldn’t have chosen a more apt headline than “The Fatal Loneliness of Nursing Homes.” After an early botched response to the coronavirus, which swept through nursing homes and brought so much death, long-term care facilities compounded that tragedy by denying residents the opportunity to see loved ones, even outdoors or at the requisite distance.
My friend Norman was moved to a nursing home after a stroke. After months of isolation and being quarantined twice because of Covid, he finally succumbed to loneliness and deprivation on Dec. 21. He had refused to eat or drink for the last two weeks of his life, having given up any hope of returning to life as he knew it.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he whispered to two friends who were at last allowed a “compassionate” one-hour visit a week before he died. “It’s just too hard.”
Four hours before his death, at his family’s instigation, he was transferred to hospice care. At least there, his sister and I were allowed to hold his hand, talk to him and play the music he loved. He died in a caring environment, but his death as a victim of fatal loneliness was a cruel, unwarranted end I wouldn’t wish upon anyone.
Pamela Wheaton
Brooklyn