Note: To respect the privacy of the family in this story, and because of sensitivity around their work visa, we are not using their full names.
One evening in August, Johnny was at home with his family in Europe when his phone rang. It was the director of his mother’s assisted living facility in Oakland, with news he had dreaded for months: His mother tested positive for the coronavirus. The director said his mother was asymptomatic. But she hadn’t eaten in days.
Johnny was halfway across the world from his mother. He had a newborn daughter to care for, and his visa application process was in limbo. Once he left Europe, he didn’t know when he’d be allowed back. But something told him his mother’s life might be at risk.
“I lost all trust in the information they were giving me,” Johnny said in a recent phone interview. “I had to come back.”
Since the onset of the pandemic, Johnny’s experience has become all too typical. Residents in assisted living facilities and nursing homes have accounted for more than a third of coronavirus deaths statewide. But until recently, California care home populations were reaching record highs. From 2012 to 2019 alone, assisted living populations statewide grew by 30%. For thousands of families like Johnny’s, these facilities once seemed safer than leaving an aging parent at home. Now, some of these families are grappling with what to do next.
The flight to Oakland took 12 grueling hours. Thirty minutes after landing, he was at his mother’s bedside. He found her covered in bedsores, dehydrated and malnourished. Her doctors warned that her kidneys weren’t working properly, and she would need immediate hospitalization to stay alive.
Johnny rode with her in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. When she went in alone, he wasn’t sure he’d ever see his mother again.
“She could have very easily died all by herself,” he said. “I felt a lot of guilt.”
That guilt Johnny felt stems from the fact that he was responsible for putting his mother in the facility in the first place.
Before April 2019, Johnny’s parents had lived together in their Oakland apartment for decades. But they’re both in their 80s, and his mother has advanced dementia. By early last year, she could no longer walk, and it was clear to Johnny that his father couldn’t care for her on his own. So Johnny suggested moving her to a home, but his dad resisted.
“He wasn’t physically able to provide the care for her,” Johnny said. “Emotionally, he wasn’t ready to be separated from her.”
Johnny insisted. He found a memory care home nearby designed for dementia patients. His mom would be living an active, social life and getting round-the-clock care. Johnny felt confident in his choice. Still, the day they dropped her off, his father was distraught.
“It was heartbreaking,” Johnny said. “To him, it was as if my mom was dying.”
