Behind closed doors: 'Something we don't want to see'

It's a scene both hopeless and homey: On a sunny fall afternoon, as the world rushes past on Redwood Road, a dozen old people doze under handmade afghans in the living room of Hazen Care Center. Behind these doors, lives are clearly winding down side by side, each in a comfy recliner.

Romaine Tuft inherited Hazen from her parents, who opened it in 1962, so long ago that an aunt who helped run it back then is now a resident. In this old-fashioned setting, with its cheery little dining room filled with Tuft's Betty Boop collection, old people get back rubs at night and hugs all day.

Tuft is proud of Hazen, but she knows what people think of nursing homes. "At its best, it's a negative industry," she says frankly. "It's about something we don't want to see."

The aversion is so strong that many of the nursing home administrators and employees the Deseret News interviewed unapologetically said that they hope never to end up in one. Reportedly half of residents never receive a visitor from "outside." Some have no one nearby to visit, but the excuse is often that the situation and the place — sometimes just the idea of the place — is depressing. So family and friends stay away.

Part of the industry's image problem harks back to recollections of nursing homes from a generation ago, a full-sensory assault that included the stench of urine-soaked cloth diapers and the sight of old people belted into their wheelchairs.

If you haven't updated your image of nursing homes for 25 years, you won't know about the gardens, the warm decor and the cats wandering leisurely among the residents' legs — all elements you may see in modern Utah nursing homes. You won't know about the effective pain management and the updated ventilation systems and moisture-repellent fabrics (only one nursing home the Deseret News visited smelled bad), or the fact that restraints and side rails are no longer used.

That's not to say that Utah's nursing homes are a destination of choice. Or the best the industry offers. Some have embraced change, some haven't. And the changes themselves are often superficial.

Even today you can see a small woman dressed in pink sweatpants, wheeling herself down a linoleum hallway at 6:30 on a spring morning. A nursing assistant has awakened and dressed her, then handed her a cookie. Now she aimlessly wheels down the hall, the cookie between her legs. Later she will sit at a table in the dining room for over an hour, quietly staring at the table, waiting for the staff to bring everyone else in so breakfast can be served.