Ryan Murdough: Past time for United States to take care of the elderly

To The Daily Sun,

If there is a single underfunded industry in the United States, it is nursing homes. Residents who can privately pay for "single" rooms can live more comfortably and quietly than the residents who have a roommate, but it’s still not the Hilton. Most nursing homes have mediocre food, some have great food and some have terrible food. Some nursing homes have the resources for terrible care and some have resources for great care.

I have had my licensed nursing assistant license for 10 years. As far as I’m concerned, residents in nursing homes should all be living in single occupant rooms eating the highest quality food and getting the highest quality care from highly paid staff members. These people have worked their whole lives, raised families, and deserve to live their last years in comfort, peace, and quite honestly, luxury. I don’t care what they did for a living or how much money they made in their lifetimes.

The U.S. is supposed to be the "greatest country on earth". You wouldn’t know it considering the way that our most vulnerable populations are treated/funded. We have more than enough money to be able to make every single nursing home in the nation a high quality care facility with highly paid staff members. Our government sends hundreds of billions of dollars a year to foreign nations. I think it is beyond time to start taking care of our own people, specifically the elderly.

Ryan Murdough

Holderness