In this chapter, I argue that needing care places many men and women in this nursing home in a situation of extreme vulnerability. In this context, being an older adult who experiences vulnerability means being exposed to circumstances in which lives are placed at risk, existence is insecure, and individuals find themselves at the mercy of medical staff—themselves exploited in their workplace—who dismiss their bodily conditions, fail to value their lives, and delay their medical needs. Older adults at this long-term care facility called La Merced, but also many members of the staff, are deprived of protection and rights, and excluded from decision making regarding their illnesses, wellbeing and, in the case of institutional personnel, their work. Older adults denied care or provided with care that worsens their conditions become vulnerable in the same way that medical workers at the facility—men and women from the lower socioeconomic sectors of the capital city– receive precarious salaries and are workwise invisible to La Merced’s administration. In the context of the institution that is the subject of this study, being vulnerable means being exposed to harm, and unfortunately, in many cases, these individuals–both institutional residents and staff– are physically, morally, or psychologically damaged. This chapter begins with a detailed description of the institution, its precarious aspects, and its failings. A discussion follows exploring recent debates in social sciences with regard to the concept of vulnerability. The chapter ends with ethnographic material from the field demonstrating that, for these residents, needing care has as its corollary that their lives are not apprehended as valuable or that, in the phrase from Judith Butler, they are “ungrievable” (Butler, 2009).