More random notes on Abolish Nursing Home

1) My work in itself, is not what I find most degrading. I understand that every society needs people to care for the elderly and people with disabilities, and in a different world, this could be a valued and much appreciated job. As strange as this sounds, poop cleaning doesnt disturb me very much -- I have seen many different brownie explosions and it doesnt surprise me as it did the first day at work, where I stood, frozen, thinking "I can't believe I am seeing this!" 

2) What is degrading is that we are rushed doing this work. That you can be cleaning up the messiest brownie explosion and then having the nurse breathe down your neck and wonder why you are taking such a long time.

3) I often think about my residents well beings and even though it creates extra work for me which I could get away with not doing, I do it cos I like knowing that my residents arent soaked in soiled underwear etc etc.

4) That said, I hate it when the bosses try to tell me this is the way to think. All my coworkers and I hate it when the charge nurse tries to drum the need to care for our residents, into us. It's not just cause they lie -- ie if they cared for the residents so much then they'd actually hire more people to do the work, but because we have no self determination in owning and carrying out the values.

5) "You always have a choice," is what the bosses also tell us. This is an idealist application of our self determination. 

 For the workers, our self determination: ie. our ability to enact and practice our values, is both an expression of humanity, as well as something that is determined by our material conditions, ie being short on time

I am writing this to get at the question:

are nursing homes reformable if they were ran by non-ableist workers self management? would that make practicing good, humane care, more achievable?

or, are these institutions just...bad bad bad!! inevitably!!!