A crisis in long-term care facilities that came to a breaking point during the pandemic is the topic of a new documentary produced jointly by the Pittsburgh-based Jewish Healthcare Foundation and WQED.

“What Covid-19 Exposed in Long-Term Care” will be screened for the first time online Wednesday, Feb. 24 at 7 p.m.

The documentary will be followed by a panel discussion with experts talking about what is happening in the long-term care industry, the challenges it faces and what it means for baby boomers and their children. What are the policy changes that need to occur so that frail seniors can be cared for in the years ahead?

The panel discussion will be moderated by broadcast journalist and KDKA radio personality Lynne Hayes-Freeland.

“For years as a society we’ve neglected the challenges facing our nation’s nursing homes. This contributed to perhaps the greatest tragedy of the pandemic where we’ve seen almost 120,000 residents and well over a thousand workers in nursing homes lose their lives to COVID-19,” said Karen Wolk Feinstein, president and CEO of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation.

“Never again should frail seniors and their caretakers face such a desperate catastrophe.”

Feinstein said the United States has had proportionately more deaths at senior residence facilities than many other countries. She felt compelled to make a documentary that told the “real story” behind the pandemic-related nursing home deaths.

“It goes back before covid. It’s a bigger story and it needed to be told,” she said. “We needed to tell the real story and we needed to feature some of the people up close, either the people running nursing homes or the people who are most knowledgeable about the topic.”

To register for the screening and the panel discussion go to: ovee.itvs.org/screenings/55iri

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