Continued Support For Our Island Home

To the editor: While the price tag for a new Island Home is substantial, voters should also bear in mind the human cost for Nantucket residents who would need to go off-island for nursing care. Previous efforts to build public-private partnerships or corporate ownership of a nursing facility have not come to fruition, so off-island care seems to be the default.

Whenever someone enters a nursing facility, their contact with the community decreases. Family and friends come to visit less often. That is just what happens, even when the facility is in the same town. Now consider having to take a ferry and a taxi to see a loved one, expending the better part of a day, and you can imagine the drop in visitors and connections to the world patients once knew. Social isolation is likely to have a dramatic adverse impact on the well-being of islanders who would need to seek nursing care far from their community. That includes short-stay residents who need post-surgical rehabilitation, as well as those who need long-term care.

I have seen this social isolation in my capacity as caregiver and power of attorney for my parents and other adults, as well as in my 30 years’ experience with long-term care policy at the federal level.

I recommend continued support for a new Island Home on the upcoming ballot.

Susan Pettey
Dartmouth St.
Nantucket