Five years ago, in the earliest days of the Covid pandemic, Dignity Alliance Massachusetts was established as a volunteer-driven to transform the provision of long-term services and care in the Commonwealth. Since that time, hundreds of individuals and organizations have used their collective voices and efforts to make a real difference through legislation, regulatory reform, public policy, and information sharing.
On behalf of Massachusetts older adults, persons with disabilities, and caregivers, I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to all involved.
Together, we look forward to even more and greater achievements in the year ahead.
We asked DignityMA participants about their involvement with DignityMA: what motivates their participation and what they would like to see accomplished in the year ahead. We are sharing three responses. If you would like to add your thoughts, you can via https://forms.gle/n3rh9kdw4wx5bfXd6.
Judi Fonsh, MSW, Leverett, MA
What motivates me to be involved with DignityMA?
Collaboration with folks who really care about the needs of older adults and those who live with disabilities and who demonstrate it by doing the work to show others what needs to be done to help.
Here’s what I would like to see accomplished in the year ahead.
Older adults and those who are living with disabilities should be prioritized as important to those running the Commonwealth.
What three words / phrases describe DignityMA for you?
Collaboration, Dignity, Advocacy
Former State Senator Richard T. Moore, Uxbridge, MA
What motivates me to be involved with DignityMA?
My initial motivation was the tragedy experienced by nursing home residents during COVID and the failure of nursing homes and government to keep those residents safe. I continue to be dismayed by the nursing home industry and the government – state and local – with the continued need to transform long-term care and expand opportunities for older adults and people with disabilities to remain in their homes and communities throughout their lives.
Here’s what I would like to see accomplished in the year ahead.
The current federal administration in Washington appears to be headed to making America more unhealthy by failing to improve on agencies and funding to support the growing population of resident age 60+ At the very least I want to see state government improve their oversight of long-term care – implement Marsters v. Healey, stand behind single, or not more than two residents per room in nursing homes, uphold and strengthen staffing regulations, implement C.197 of the Acts of 2024 and fight against cuts in Medicaid and Social Security.
What three words / phrases describe DignityMA for you?
Independent honest broker (for aging, those with disabilities, and caregivers)
Sandy Novack, MBA, LICSW, ACSW, CSW-G, Brookline, MA
What motivates me to be involved:
Over decades, I wrangled with some of the same types of issues that Dignity Alliance now confronts. The difference is that often, before the Dignity Alliance was formed, I was working on issues alone or with a small group of people. Dignity Alliance, however, has participants with special interests or expertise on a wide range of matters, so issues can be moved forward in a timely and strategic way. I feel I owe it to the people swept up in lower quality facilities, left to manage on their own in the community, or otherwise not in a good situation, to finally achieve changes in some of the systems that disserviced them. It is a very good feeling to work toward raising up the more vulnerable.
For the year ahead:
- I want to visit some facilities with a surveyor, and document ventilation and heat stress (no air conditioning, no windows that open, or not enough heat in the winter),and follow it through to being corrected.
- I would like to see health insurers’, hospitals’, etc. plans of action and programs to help with climate change, heat stress, food insecurity. If they don’t have such policies and programs, why not? If they do have it, how many people do they serve?
- I would like to work to change the mindset of hospital discharge planners to prioritize discharging patients back home with services, rather than the automatic attempt to discharge anyone with disabilities and older adults to a nursing home. This means we must ensure support services will be available in the home.
- I would like to see the growth of a hospital to home model, complete with a return to doctors making home visits like they sometimes used to do for patients with certain needs, and greater use of telehealth.
- I would like to consider combining the Disabled Persons Protection Commission with Adult Protective Services, and work to not turn anyone down for assistance if they have disabilities or are an older adult.
- I want to see a plaque in the State House, acknowledging the illness, suffering, and deaths of so many of the most vulnerable in our Commonwealth during the coronavirus pandemic. And every year, the Great Hall should showcase educational material on the true story of why the vulnerable were left to sicken or die. This includes residents and staff in nursing homes, group homes, assisted living, rest homes, elderly housing, older adults and people with disabilities in apartments, hospital staff, essential workers like grocery store employees, caregivers, home health and home care workers, etc.
- I would like to see actual housing units for people with disabilities and older adults, rather than just talk about creating it in the future, I want to see it opening now, from vacated strip malls, vacated churches and office towers, etc. Accessible units, and units at all price points. I am tired of hearing maybe soon, maybe this and maybe that. Hotels have closed, office towers have closed, malls have closed–use political muscle and get buildings renovated now to be accessible and affordable, also climate hardy with air conditioning, hurricane-proof windows, etc.
- I can’t accept that a body of legislators cannot give a substantial raise to the PNA, when they themselves get raises most years. Maybe we should propose to roll back state salaries to the year that the PNA stopped increasing, and then let’s see how they manage on 20 year old income in a 2025 world. In fact, let’s have a campaign to roll back doctors’ salaries, nursing home administrators’ salaries, governors’ salaries, etc. everyone’s salaries to what it was twenty-odd years ago and see who can afford today’s rent/mortgage, clothes, etc. , and let’s see how quickly they then push to raise the PNA.
Words/phrases to describe DignityMA:
A smorgasbord of work groups and advocacy events, enough to fill the problem-solving and emotional appetite of the most hungry for change, while surrounded by creative, and forward-thinking minds. A place at the table for everyone–including professional, older adult, person with disabilities, patient, nursing home resident, caregiver, family member. Always collegial, always something new to learn or share with others. In turbulent times in the world, like we have now, it is THE place to be each week to pull together and focus on the possible.