In, 2022, I found myself on the front lines of our long-term care system fighting for some semblance of quality for my mother’s life. But despite my advocacy, my mom still suffered a list of egregious consequencesresulting from neglect and abuse while living in a 5-star, coveted nursing home in Los Angeles. Since then, I have discovered that I am just one of the millions who had absolutely no idea how broken and corrupt the nursing home system truly is until attempting to navigate it. As a filmmaker, I know the power of the media. Unable to “unsee what I saw,” I knew I had to share it with the world.
No Country for Old People is a more than a documentary. It’s a movement. It is a cautionary tale and a call to action that pulls the curtain back on the nursinghome/long-term care industry to reveal a decades old systemic crisis. A crisis that has been enabled by thepervasive ageism and ableism prevalent in our nation as well as many others around the world.
For over 50 years, care for our most vulnerable has stealthily turned into a cutthroat world of privateequity and real estate investment trust-backed nursing homes that subscribe to a profit over people business model where neglect, pain andsuffering have sadly become the industry standard of care. A standard that took ahorrific toll on mymother’s physical and cognitive health and ultimately cost her her life.To put it bluntly: follow the money.
My co-producer, Rick Mountcastle, the recently retired award-winning U.S. Attorney who Federally prosecuted PurduePharma and the Sackler Family for marketing Oxycontin (as portrayed by Peter Sarsgaard in the Huluminiseries “DOPESICK”), spent over 20 years prosecuting healthcare companies and executives whocapitalize on vulnerable patients for profit, but never saw any significant change. Rick brings his passion and expertiseto this project to change a system that allows such exploitation.
No Country for Old People chronicles the last harrowing 6 months of my mother’s life in a 5-star nursinghome in Los Angeles in 2022 and features powerful testimonials from caregivers, residents, and frontlineproviders, as well as illuminating interviews from the most respected experts on Medicare, Medicaid,Hospice, Federal Policy, The Lobby, Elder Abuse Law, and Long Term Care, as a means to address thesefour questions:
We are working towards reaching the largest audience possible through widespread distribution on premium streamingplatformsto amplify and educate the public about the current nursing home system. Our goal is to shift theexisting narratives about aging, disability and careby activating a collective conscious shift that results in real change. We are mobilizing a powerful coalition across the millionsof us who are touched by long-term care and launching a movement we are calling ROAR! An acronym that stands for:
As the renowned Geriatrician, author, educator, and dementia expert, Dr. Allen Power says in No Country for Old People, “What changed the disability movement was mothers from hell. What’s going to change long term care is daughters from hell!”
One Response
As an educator and advocate in the palliative and end of life care space, I found this documentary to be a ‘horror’ story reflective of low death literacy, poor, and in some cases, uninformed decisionmaking as well as the failure to undertake advance care planning. Not recommended viewing, especially in the Australian context.