Party of Five in a Room Made for One

My worst fears about this "skilled nursing center" where my mother temporarily resides was the smells associated with these places, which really aren't too bad. My other was that I would come in to the place seeing people sitting parked in wheelchairs dribbling on themselves waiting for someone - anyone to help them.
When I entered Mom's tiny room that she shares with another woman last night, she was sitting in a wheelchair facing her bed. They had just brought her back from dinner and she was waiting to use the restroom before getting relaxed. Her roommate had two visitors, one of whom is my distant cousin, and his wife, who I attended school with.
These rooms, which I would estimate to be no more than 10 x 12, really weren't made for 2 beds, let alone, 2 beds, 2 wheelchairs and 3 visitors. So, I moved mom's bed table out of the way and swung her around so she could at least participate in the conversation. And although my cousin and his wife came to see their grandmother and I was there to visit my mom, our close proximity to one another made it one big party.
Mom said one of the therapists had just started at this job, located in the most economically challenged county in our state. The therapist had just left a job in Johnson County, the most econimically affluent county in our state.
"She couldn't believe it," Mom told me last night of the therapists comments. "She said over there, they all have private rooms and its a lot nicer."
I know. I've written stories at the grand openings, some of the places would rival some of the most decked-out casino-hotels I've seen in Vegas.
I laughed and asked mom, "Did you tell her you not only have to share a space no bigger than a foxhole, but you have to share a phone and there's no basic cable? I bet she would have been horrified and resigned on the spot!"
Mom just shook her head. "Our tax dollars at work."
My Dad was a WWII veteran and worked at the railroad until he dropped dead of a heart attack at age 58. There just was no time to save for their retirement and besides, my mother erraneously thought the retirement plan at the railroad would take care of her. I'm sure my mom's roommate, who was a federal government employee, thought the same.
Later, after the other guests left, I had to move her roommate's wheelchair (who, after an hour and half was still waiting for someone to help her to bed) in order to scoot Mom by so she could get into the bathroom.
But the horrifying thing just isn't about space. It's about dignity. My mother, and by extension, I, know everything about her roommate and her condition, whether we want to or not. And my roommate, and by extension, her visitors, knows everything about my mother's condition.
That little curtain separating that tiny space didn't keep us from hearing her roommate getting sick and it doesn't keep her rommate from knowing my mother's reactions to her medicines.
I thought a lot about dignity when I was moving electrical cords to get her bed table back to where she could reach her water, book and glasses.
"You know I asked someone today if she could move that over here for me, and she told me she couldn't because there were too many cords."
I looked at the two cords stretching from her medical devices beside her bed to the lone outlet in the middle of the room.
"What? They didn't learn how to pick up electrical cords in whatever schooling these people have had?" I said in frustration. It had taken me maybe 2 minutes to get my mother access to what little she has in that awful place.
My mom says we don't have to wish bad onto people. Karma usually takes care of that. But driving home last night, I really hoped that someday these people have to lose a little of their dignity, maybe even have to beg someone to give them access to their bedside table. And if I could be there to see it, I would give up a little good karma.