If cleanliness is next to Godliness, then there is precious little Godliness at the nursing home where I reside.
My wing of the facility has been without the services of a shower aide for more than a month now. This means that, twice a week, on my scheduled shower days I have to play Let's Make a Deal in order to receive some modicum of personal hygiene. Now I realize that finding a candidate who is capable of distributing tepid water and a modicum of soap is only slightly less difficult than finding a physicist with the education necessary to build an atomic bomb. But still...
Only those of us who are aware enough of our own surroundings (and our own somewhat gamey odor) are able to receive their showers on time. For those who can not make a complaint, the nurse's aides cheerfully suggest that they do without. Again, this is more than a month.
One patient down on the personal care wing apparently managed to evade soap and running water for about six months, simply by telling aides that she had already bathed. By the time her personal hygiene was discovered to be lacking, I presume that the sheets on her bed were able to crawl into the laundry room under their own power.
If one is fortunate enough to obtain assistance in getting a shower the next issue becomes how gentle the showering will be. I've had several encounters with an aide (subsequently fired) who insisted on scrubbing my hide as though she were scouring grandma's cast-iron skillet. Not many tears were shed at her departure.
The lack of concern about cleanliness does not end with the showers. There are slapdash mopping jobs to the rooms and getting beds made, if one is unable to do it one's self, may happen as infrequently as twice a month.
I'll be the first to admit that my housekeeping skills don't have Martha Stewart looking over her shoulder. But when I think about moving to the personal care wing where I'll receive occupational therapy to ensure that I will handle household chores on my own that staffers here are currently paid to do, all I can do is look at the staff around me. The staffers here are responsible for segregating nasty things like germs and bacteria from patients in fragile health.
I think about the way that important task is carried out around here. And then I just shake my head.