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| Schloss Goldenstein (Photo by Eigenes Werk) |
Although nursing facilities are often called homes, they rarely feel like such. Elderly folks especially thrive upon the familiarity and congeniality of their actual home-sweet-home.
Three Austrian nuns who were “moved to a Catholic care” facility, “a decision they claim was made against their will,” returned to their convent home “with the help of former students and a locksmith.” All in their 80s, each had felt “homesick and out of place” while away from the convent they had lived in for decades. One claimed the right to remain in the convent “until the end of our lives,” a promise which she then stated “was broken.”
Church authorities have been “highlighting concerns about... health and safety,” insisting that “the nursing home provided essential medical care.” The nuns, however, have resumed their daily convent routines with the loving assistance of community supporters. Such mutuality may very well outweigh any so-called care that clinicians might provide.
