Category: Aging

By Thomas Goldsmith Dolores Gardner of Greenville looks forward to receiving farmers-market-fresh vegetables along with meals delivered to the home she shares with her husband Austin.  Those are coming from Pitt County Meals on Wheels in July as one of the services financed through Home and Community Care Block Grants, funds that are expected to

by Kate Martin, Carolina Public Press Phil Wells and his siblings visited his 93-year-old mother every weekend. Described as a “social butterfly” by her son, Rosalee Wells was a homemaker who raised five children. She lives in a Wake County nursing home and had a vibrant social life before the pandemic. “We took her out for lunch. We took

Editor’s note: This story contains details of nursing home life that could be disturbing to some readers.  By Thomas Goldsmith Appalled when he saw blood mixed with the waste in his mother’s nursing home toilet, Tim Wall called 911 emergency workers as well as quizzing staff at her Kernersville facility to try to get answers.

By Sidney Madden, Braeden Waddell and Yanqi Xu, Investigative Reporting Workshop This story was originally published on The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. Published in collaboration with the Investigative Reporting Workshop. Even before COVID-19, aides caring for elderly and disabled people in nursing homes often were overworked and underpaid, doing everything from changing linens to

North Carolina Health News won 14 awards last week during the North Carolina Press Association’s annual awards ceremony, five of which were first place honors for online publications. The Press Association honored work done from October 2019 through September 2020. “I’m incredibly proud of our entire team for the work they’ve done this past year,”

By Hannah Critchfield Mark Shepherd got off the phone with the public health department and began reaching out to members of the Henderson County Rescue Squad. It was early January. The volunteers, all emergency medical professionals, were needed at The Laurels of Hendersonville, an assisted living facility about 20 miles outside Asheville. Shepherd, a physician

By Thomas Goldsmith The long-term care landscape in North Carolina was already in flux when the COVID-19 pandemic landed in 2020 — direct care workers faced 10 years of stagnant wages, nursing homes had waning numbers of residents, and the call for in-home aides had dramatically increased. Ongoing trends among residents, care workers and the

By Liora Engel-Smith For the first time in a long time last summer, the Madison County fairgrounds were empty. As with many other events across the state, the pandemic sidelined this annual celebration of all things agriculture. But last month, cars carrying seniors flocked to the empty fairgrounds once again, this time not in search

By Melba Newsome Each Monday at noon, Janice Somers closes her office door at Westwood Hills Nursing and Rehabilitation and puts her phone on Do Not Disturb. For the next 90 minutes, the nurse administrator and four team members join hundreds of employees from over a hundred North and South Carolina facilities for the Nursing

By Thomas Goldsmith Sharnese Ransom works to protect adults with disabilities from neglect and abuse, both in her Raleigh neighborhood and when running the statewide group that represents North Carolina’s frontline troops against abuse of aging adults. The 2020 arrival of the pandemic has made it tougher on both settings. In fact, the state’s most