Abstract
Nursing homes, neglected for too long by government administrations, have paid a very high tribute to the lack of protective measures and social distancing that COVID-19 has imposed. To date, it has been calculated that almost a fifth of all residents in nursing home in northern Italy have died due to COVID-19, with a mortality of Lombardy nursing homes varying between 10% and 50% of all residents. In some cases, 3-4 guests of a single home died in a single day.
During the first phases of the pandemic, nursing homes become like castles under siege, where guests could no longer leave and new guests could no longer enter, given the spread of the infection within these institutions.
During the second wave - December 2020 - the situation changed completely. If during the first wave nursing homes were like isolated citadels, with very little contact with the external environment, nursing homes seemed then as abandoned castles, where the virus entered and settled, causing serious damages. They were abandoned by the government, which repeatedly declared that nursing homes do not belong to the public service network. They were abandoned by staff, because many of them moved to public hospitals, where the salary is higher. The remaining staff felt also abandoned and betrayed, and forced to cover extra hours and extra roles.
The start of the vaccination process, though slow, made nursing homes regaining a sense of protection and dignity. They became again ‘proud castles’ of their function. Now it is important to transform the regained respectability into concrete acts, to avoid that every crisis would again negatively impact on nursing homes functioning and reputation.