Challenging Conformity

Nadia Kiderman has been a veteran healthcare consultant with decades of experience. She spent a considerable portion of her career practicing dentistry, first in Long Island Jewish Center, where she conducted her residency. She later moved to New York City where she practiced on Park Avenue for many years. But soon after Nadia realized there was a need for helpful and sage advice to be provided in a consulting capacity to those in the elder care industry. 

With that, Kiderman developed a consulting practice that sought to challenge the status quo in the elder care industry. As many of us know and have witnessed through this entire unfortunate Coronavirus pandemic, the nursing home and assisted living facilities and industries need to be reformed. They have been hotbeds for fatalities throughout this pandemic, and unfortunately that is hardly surprising. 

According to Nadia Kiderman on Facebook, the need for substantial reforms to have been made to the elder care industry has been a long time coming. Due to the minimal oversight, the lack of compliance (in many cases) with the minimal amount of regulations did and do exist in the industry, the combination has proven fatal during this pandemic. The facilities were ill-equipped to handle the pandemic, because many of them are severely understaffed to begin with. 

Sadly, few had shone a spotlight on this tragic situation and its surrounding circumstances. The reasons according to more cynical analysts have to do with the level of political influence that many in the elder care industry happen to wield. Others believe it  might simply have to do with the neglect that our own policymakers have for the industry, given the fact that it  isn’t a popular subject or topic for them to tackle. 

In reality, the American people and ordinary citizens have to raise their voices in unison and call for reforms to an industry where change is long overdue. United as one, it  must happen; and be called for, loud and clear. Ultimately our policymakers on capitol hill and on a state and local level only know how to respond to their constituents’ calls and political pressure. That’s ultimately what office holders are trained to do.

In order to get elected and have the opportunity to also stay in power, they need to be able to have a coalescing of support among their constituents. It’s therefore up-to constituents to express these concerns about the state of the elder care industry, to ensure that our public servants take these matters seriously. 

Nadia Kiderman in The Times of Israel has written extensively about the need for there to be a public outcry on this issue and for there to also be broader reforms to our political system. Ultimately, optimists like Kiderman will call for these reforms to the way our politicians conduct themselves. But in the end of the day, these reforms are not going to come anytime soon.

Politicians are cut from a different cloth – few are actually interested in serving the public; instead, unfortunately too many are interested in serving and lining their own pockets and interests. This is a reality that should spur the public into action to call for transformative change to the current oversight mechanisms in place regulating the elder care industry. 

However if enough constituents coalesce around this unifying message of clarity that we wish to see change enacted and driven by our policymakers and legislators, then change will come. But that needs to happen first. People need to band together in the interest of our population’s most vulnerable. It’s the least we can do for a generation that cultivated and bred the generation of our own. We owe it  to them to ensure that proper guardrails are put up to ensure safety and security is preserved for them in the future. Lives are at stake. And that is not an overstatement in the least.