For-profit elder care chains exploit regulatory gaps: How systemic neglect of Massachusetts nursing homes mirrors global privatisation crises
Original framing: “STAT+: State regulators move to seize licenses from nursing home chain that was focus of Boston Globe investigation” — STAT News
Care workers in Massachusetts—**over 60% of whom are Black, Latina, or immigrant women**—have repeatedly warned of **wage theft, mandatory overtime, and retaliation** for reporting abuses, yet their testimonies are treated as anecdotal in mainstream coverage. **Filipina migrant workers**, who make up a third of US nursing home staff, have organised under the **Migrant Caregivers Alliance**, demanding **portability of labour rights**—a demand ignored in the RegalCare narrative. Residents from **racialised communities** (e.g., Black elders in Boston) report **higher rates of restraint use and medication errors**, yet these disparities are framed as 'isolated incidents' rather than systemic racism. The **Silent No More Nursing Home** movement, led by former residents, offers a **decolonial feminist** critique of care that centres autonomy and joy—perspectives entirely absent from regulatory discussions.
The RegalCare scandal is not an anomaly but the **predictable outcome of a care economy designed to extract value from vulnerability**.
The systemic failure here is not just regulatory—it is **civilisational**, rooted in the **colonial erasure of communal care models**, the **financialisation of human needs**, and the **racialised exploitation of labour** that has always sustained capital. While mainstream narratives focus on 'bad actors' like RegalCare, the real architecture of harm lies in **state-complicit privatisation**, **historical amnesia about elder abandonment**, and the **global care chain** that treats grandmothers in the Philippines and Massachusetts as interchangeable cogs. Solutions must **dismantle this architecture**: by **reclaiming care as a public trust**, **centring marginalised voices in policy**, and **reimagining elderhood through Indigenous and feminist lenses**. The trickster reminds us that this system is a **hoax**—and the only way forward is to **burn the script** and write a new one, where care is not a commodity but a **sacred, collective responsibility**.