I think it’s just easier for the people working there if patients are kept calm with medication.
ps - Sorry for misreading. I completely agree with you about nursing home workers in general, and I'm sorry about your father.
My wife has been helping care for a dementia patient who is a really nice guy and easy to live with. He just doesn't remember how to get to the cafeteria or do many activities of daily living.
Other dementia patients are nasty and might try to strangle a caregiver that they don't recognize.
Nursing home workers do a job that is important, few want to do or could do. Most do it for pay. Most do not aspire to the job but end up there for practical reasons
Their job is harder than any of the other jobs you mentioned. Some people maybe do it for the money and others probably out of compassion. But in the end it doesn’t matter. It’s a very tough and thankless job.
Nursing care is expensive. Very expensive. No one wants to pay for it, either because people didn't or couldn't save enough for it prior to needing it, or government can't get the will together to properly fund it (Medicaid/Medicare aside) with taxes. People still end up in homes, caregivers continue to be chronically underpaid, and there's some occasional public concern or outrage over it so society can feel better about the situation. "Thoughts and prayers" over meaningful elder care reform.
My estimate would be that you probably need around 1 person for 5 people or less to do the job some justice. Plus doctors and other personnel. This would be freakishly expensive.
Also, it is as expensive as you assume:
"This report, authorized by the Chairman of the Virginia Senate Committee on Education and Health, studies the provisions of Senate Bill 1125 of the 2001 Session of the General Assembly. Senate Bill 1125 requires Virginia nursing homes to implement minimum nursing staff standards of 5.2 hours per resident day (hprd). For Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs), the Bill requires minimum ratios of 1:5 residents (day), 1:5 (evening), and 1:10 (night) or a total of 4.0 hprd, and minimum licensed nurse-to-resident ratios of 1:15 (day), 1:20 (evening), and 1:30 (night) or a total of 1.2 hprd. These minimum standards exceed those of all other states as well as those recommended by advocacy and research organizations. The fiscal impact on the Medicaid program is estimated to be an additional $91.2 million from the general fund annually."
It would be nice if we could all live to a ripe age, enjoy many years of retirement maintaining mobility and a lucid mind and then suddenly die in sleep. Unfortunately, it doesn't always turn out that way. Hopefully by the time many of us get to be that age, euthanasia will be a mainstream option.
Instead of being calming, they were tuned to broadcast channels where the news channels announced the-world-is-going-to-pieces between loud advertisements.
I'm curious if video games being a more common (plus potentially social) activity will be more common in retirement home-like settings.
Maybe by that time we'll have personal VR setups with internet connections that route around health-care-system influence.