I was watching a report this morning by Sanjay Gupta on CNN about a unique Dutch facility caring for dementia patients.
Unofficially dubbed “dementia village“, the facility aims to provide a life for its residents that is as close to “normal” as possible.
Yet there is something creepy about a place that only has one way in and one way out, and it is locked and under surveillance. A place where freedom is illusory. Even Gupta could not resist making a comparison with The Truman Show: that the normalcy in “dementia village” is a fake, a deception.
True, it’s a deception that serves a noble purpose. Yet it reminded me of another fictitious facility: The Unit, as depicted in the eponymous novel by Swedish author Ninni Holmqvist, where people live out the last days of their lives while waiting to become organ donors.