For three years, staffers at UCLA Health have been quietly fulfilling final wishes for dying patients in the intensive care unit. Amid the isolating forces of the pandemic, their work has become all the more meaningful.
On their own in dirty buildings with little guidance or support, vulnerable older residents worry about unchecked transmission of the potentially deadly virus. “We felt abandoned.”
More than 3,000 nursing homes reported less than a week’s worth of supplies, and 653 said they had run out entirely at some point. Stopgap FEMA equipment has not reached many facilities, and packages that have arrived have fallen short of promises.
Some of Montana’s Native American nations are holding firm on coronavirus protections even as the rest of Montana reopens. They’ve got more at stake, they say, in protecting their elders who preserve their endangered culture.