Have you ever had a friend or loved one say, “Gee, I can’t wait to get older so I can go to a nursing home?”

Skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), rebranded “nursing homes,” will never escape their reputation for bodily smells and agonizing sounds of aging.

The escalation of hospital and insurance profits, coupled with diminished government funding, led SNFs to become the downhill-slide repositories of aging Americans unable to be cared for at home.

As a geriatric doctor and whistleblower for decades, my voice has constantly been silenced.

Now, COVID-19 has raised its coronal tentacles, disproportionally affecting nursing home residents.

Our mother fell last year, requiring a short stay in an SNF for rehabilitation. Her admission was not threatened by a virus, and her only complaint was their cable was limited, as they did not get Dodger games. (Each night I had to give her play-by-play, inning-by-inning recaps.) She was lucky and is now thankful she is not in an SNF “hotspot.”

How we care for our elders is a reflection of who we are as a nation.

Hopefully, COVID-19 has taught us worthy lessons to improve SNFs, even if it starts by upgrading cable.

Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D., is a geriatric house-call physician who serves as president of the Los Angeles County Commission for Older Adults and Assemblyman to the California Senior Legislature. He has practiced in the Santa Clarita Valley for 32 years.