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Nursing homes can both help people get well or prepare them for death. This all depends on what type of nursing home it is. A skilled nursing facility takes hospital patients who are recovering from surgery and need occupational therapy. They also work with speech therapy (this helps with food consumption and chewing/swallowing properly) and physical therapy after lets say a hip or knee procedure. This skilled area is usually only one part or one wing of the facility. The rest is long term care and it is there to prepare or at least make activities of daily living (ADLs) as comfortable as possible.

I have worked in health care specializing in geriatrics for 4 years. I have mainly worked in long term care facilities and have done work with both skilled and disabled (mentally and or physically). The time I spent working in the long term care nursing aspect I helped to prepare many people's parents and grandparents for the end and usually being there holding them when family could not or would not be there for them until they passed.

More often than not, I would care for these people starting when they seemed to be doing well, but you learn really quick that they are not going to get well and only decline no matter what attempts are made to help them. Nursing homes are where the elderly go when it's time for the end. It may not happen for years but that facility is their last stop and their families often tend to forget about them once they are settled in until I have to make the phone call that their health has gone extremely down hill and that they should come in to say goodbye. Sometimes they come but most times they don't and aren't seen until the call is made to tell them that their "loved one" has passed.

I have held war vets, loving mothers who have dedicated their lives to their families and children, church pastors, artist, people who once made an impression on this world. I watched as their age took its toll on their bodies and minds. I held their hands, wrapped my arms around them trying to fill that loneliness that their loved ones couldn't until their last breath.

Today I can't work in this field because it has made me bitter and hateful. My patients did not cause this, but their families. It bothered me to pretend to be compassionate to families that would come in once their loved one passed in tears. Where were they during the holidays? How about their last birthday, mother's day, father's day or when they just wanted someone familiar to care for them they way they cared for the ones they loved? Instead they had me. Someone who grew to be considered in their mind to be family and the closest thing to familiar.

The only thing I hold with compassion in my heart about my work, is that my co-workers and I did everything we could to make a difference and fill that emptiness that caused that hollow look in their eyes. We worked hard to help fulfill a meaningful life until they wanted meaning no more.

Learn more about this author, Hellen Wyeth.
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