By letting the families they lovingly raised, and their churches they faithfully attended—do it, while getting rid of the government socialism that robs their ability to care for themselves in the first place.
I don't understand what you mean by "trapped."
We don’t care for the elderly.We warehouse them in some of the most expensive nursing homes around.They are poorly managed from what I have seen and the patients usually get substandard care.
People that can’t fend for are not even fed usually since there is not enough staffing or the staff is busy doing things that have nothing to do with patient care.
The supervision of those same people is attrocious.I only hope that should I get to that point in my life I’m not left to die of starvation in a nursing home.
“And she’ll need someone with her 24 hours a day.”
My wife and I have taken care of my mother, who has very advanced Alzheimer’s, for the past eight and one half years. She has outlived all of the early predictions of her death by almost five years now, is bed ridden, and cannot communicate except by her wonderful smile and the occasional pat on the hand of the person feeding her.
Five years ago, we took advantage of a “respite” program that the local hospice offered and put mother in a nursing home for four days while we took a very short, belated “honeymoon”. When we came back, Mom had been starved almost to death. After that, we made the decision together that she would be with us and we with her, no matter her condition, until she died.
In most cases, our parents put their love for their children ahead of their own personal wants and desires for many years. Why should they not be honored by us in their decline by knowing that we are going to be there for them as they walk their last mile?
I find this incomprehensible. My own mother disliked her mother-in-law intensely, and had the means to put my grandmother in a lavish setting with a legion of nurses; but my grandmother wanted to be with family when she started to fail. She lived with us five years, and NO nurses -- my mother did it all herself, and got over her disaffection in the process.
That's all of one experience, however. But how did people take care of their elderly up until recently? And why do they call it a family if they don't provide for their own? The more government becomes "humane," the less individuals retain that quality. We are seeing the natural bonds loosen.
I know a liberal, whose mom is failing at a fairly early age (72). He is researching who he can pawn her off on....I suggested maybe he should take her in, under his roof. You’d think I had shot the pope, with the look he gave me. That option is, apparently, outrageous.
When my father-in-law’s health began to take a turn for the worse with his Parkinson’s, my husband and I wanted to take him to live with us. But, my mother-in-law convinced us that there was no way we could have taken care of him. And I think she was right. He was a big man who would leave the house and wander around in the middle of the night. He would fall down often and I would not have been able to pick him up if it happened during the day when my husband was working. And not only that, but he could have fallen on my young children and hurt them. It got me to thinking that the wonders of modern medicine keep up alive a long time, but not always in a state that allows people to care for us. It killed us to not be able to help, but it just wasn’t feasible.
Well, from personal experience. My MIL came to live with us when my FIL passed away, no real problem until the end because she was in relatively good health and mobile until a month before she died. My sister had my dad live with her after his stroke, instead of going to a rehab, and the therapists came to her house.
BUT, my mom feel ill. We brought her home (to my parent’s house) because we didn’t want to put her in a nursing home, or a long term specialty hospital (that’s what the doctor’s recommended.) She lingered for 14 months, unable to walk, unable to feed herself, unable to get out of bed, unable to turn over by herself. She was coherent, not always rational, but never lost cognition to the point of not recognizing everyone who came to visit her and being able to carry on a conversation.
We hired round the clock CNAs, but luckily my sisters and I live close (and each of us has a flexible work schedule) because one of us needed to be there, sometimes 3 times a day. The CNAs were not allowed to administer meds. My siblings nor I could have taken care of her by ourselves, she needed trained nursing care. My dad was there at the house too, but he is elderly and not able to help.
I’m glad they were able to afford this arrangement because nursing homes are grim places...however, it was less than ideal, and this is why. How do you get medical help, or dental help for someone who’s housebound? A physician would not come to the house, so we had visiting nurses, but for significant medical problems we’d have to hire an ambulance (around 700 bucks round trip) to take her to the doctor. And dental care, if a person can’t get to a dentist...there is no recourse. When I asked her dentist what could they do for a toothache, they said the only thing they can do in a nursing home or home healthcare setting is antibiotics (in case it’s an abcess) and pain pills...no way to fill a cavity, etc. And even if we could have transported her to the dentist, she wouldn’t have been able to sit in a dental chair, or open her mouth to have work done. They could have hospitalized her and removed a tooth, but we didn’t have to go there because the situation resolved.
Hopefully, as we’re faced with more elderly in homecare they will work out some of these problems. Caring for someone who’s just elderly, and ambulatory, is doable, caring for the medically needy patient is very hard.
My mom had excellent care, and the CNAs were like family and truly loved my mom, but if a lot of money hadn’t been available and if we (the siblings) hadn’t been in a position to chip in time everyday, it wouldn’t have been feasible.
Good gravy, societies across all cultures have been caring for their elderly for millenia. Now Obama comes along and wonders why nobody is doing anything for them? Sheesh
Tort and malpractice reform would make all health care cheaper even elderly care.
I have insurance for Long Term Health Care and have been paying for it for about 10 years now. I have budgeted my
money and at times did without things I really wanted in order to pay for it. The premiums have risen a little
over the years but I have always made sure to pay it because I don’t want to be a burden on someone else.
I know that a lot of people cannot afford even the small amount that I have but the policy can be written to fit quite a few different budgets.
I just hope Obama doesn’t cause the total collapse of the insurance industry before I need to collect on it.
Obamadeathcare = “Logan’s Run” without the “run”.
Kids should take care of their elderly parents.
For the "family should do it" folks, medicare and insurance studies show that fully 50% of nursing home residents have no living relative--anywhere. They are literally alone in the world.
In large part, medicaid is the payor for long term care. Many of the recipients could live at home or in a cheaper assisted living facility, at one third the cost, if medicaid adjusted its policies. Some states, like Ohio, are attempting to do this now, but the nursing home industry is a powerful lobby. There are thousands of nursing homes and they all are competing for residents to keep their beds full.
Most nursing home residents if they had their druthers would not be there, they would be in their own homes. Medicaid could make that happen for many of them, and save a boatload of money, if the states simply get the political will to pass enabling legislation.
ping