Taking care of the elderly is more beneficial than leaving the old timers in the nursing homes. I’ve learned (from ‘Maw’ while she was lying on the bed to the right of to my computer work area) that the government removes the monthly benefits from the recipient to almost nothing when submitted to another’s care. The caretaker looses the ability of transferring the benefits from the recipient into the caretaker’s account.
Money is nothing when there is no longer strength or the faithful love to care for someone whose mind is still intact — like my paternal grandmother. Old timers like her should not have to be thrown into long term care — by two daughters, one son and that ‘Orge’ in-law (the mother of my first cousin ‘Giant’ from USC) — with a bunch of professional strangers, who could steal, say jewelry, or so I hear.
The place is not the same as the comfort of home and there is less interaction with loved ones, who rarely visit if but on occasions like holidays and birthdays. But those visits don’t last longer than a few minutes at a time. The time spent with family members is pretty much severed once the elders are in the hands of the retirement homes ,where the elderly is left to die a slow death and probably alone.
Retirement homes are a money making business and the care is not that great. It is really meant for those indulgent who have no control of bodily functions and their minds are gone. They are quite helpless and voiceless to complain of any pain and discomfort; so in essence that makes caretaking easy but heartless. Some folks living in these places are quite the opposite and are able-bodied and sharp-minded. It’s truly a sad truth.
So for those who think leaving the elderly in the retirement homes is the last resort (whether to gain from freedom to live and party while young or by pressure from impatient and unsupportive in-laws), their fate will be the same fate of the children who prematurely submit elders to a quiet and lonesome prison, err I meant, place of greener pastures. I, too, have to consider the fate of my folks and ultimately me. But we will worry about that later.
Copyright © 2008 by Fluffy von der Flynn. All rights reserved.
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