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Op-ed: Nursing homes are “warehouses for death” by Peter Children

This is an area that appalls me to no end.  These warehouses for death are a blight on this country and at the same time an indictment against the civilization that panders to them.  If you have entered them for one reason or another, then you know the horror that lies therein.

To someone who stems from my culture these are aberrant places, they are places of abandonment…a dumping ground for loved ones who have become disposable and need to be set aside and out of sight until death comes for them.  If you put your parents in one of these holding pens then God should strike you down.  Even if your parents did not treat you well growing up they deserve more at the end of their life than a shared room with another discarded soul.

I suppose you visit once a week for a few minutes…maybe even an hour for someone who raised you and loved you more than life itself.  And that is if you live in the same city; if you live out of town the visit is replaced with a phone call, again once a week maybe on Sunday nights when you are told about your grandchildren, and where they are going on their  next vacation.  If you live out of town; think back to that day, the day visited with your parent or parents about this very thing.  It was then decided the best thing to do was sell the house, call Goodwill and give them the furniture and move Mom & Dad into a nursing home.  Now that is out of the way; you call often you write and send cards but you live far away and work, you have family obligations that prevent you from coming that often…birthday greetings are given over the phone, maybe a plant is sent…maybe. If you must travel this route, I suggest you move your loved one to a facility to the community you now live in; these facilities are all across the country, that way you can at least see them in person.

But when mealtime comes your Mother & Father are going to eat food you yourself would not…but they won’t complain because they love you too much to make you worry.  Nights are spent with someone else in the room, and that means all sorts of things can happen, but they won’t complain because they love you too much to worry you.  Their surrounding are filled with people who walk around half dressed, slumped over in a wheelchair drugged and parked along side a corridor…you see them there when you come to visit.  The doors to the rooms are open and you see people lying there with there mouth open, the air filled with disinfectants  and all sorts of stale odors.   More likely than not, they are  waiting for the angle of death to take them from this unimaginable hell.

A friend of mine pointed out what he thought to be positives in defense of these hell holes. He reminded me that many who live in these places have no one to care for them, that they were childless and had no one to step up.  I’ll give him that but the great preponderance lies with me; these people have children…..children who were raised in a home where they stood witness to their grandparents being sent into the same facilities where they have now placed their own parents, and where they fully expect to enter themselves one day.

People carefully transfer whatever wealth they may have acquired during there lifetime, to their children at least two to five years prior to entering such a facility…then throw themselves on the mercy of the welfare system who will in turn pay for their care as indigent victims.  Your tax dollars will find their way into those bank accounts one way or another.

My mother lived to be 99 years and 7 months; I tried to get her to 100 but her parts just wore out.  For years I cooked, washed and ironed clothes, cut her finger nails and toe nails. I washed her hair and towards the end helped her bathe and change clothes.  I delayed travel plans and told myself there would be other times to go where I needed to.  In the land where we came from there are no such facilities; parents live with their children until death…it is a natural way of life, like it was meant to be.  I know Greek men who have done the same; one man’s mother lived to be 102 and he took care of her….no nursing home.

These homes are now integrated into  our society, acceptable and expected; but not where my people came from….never ever.  There are solutions, other options, each different but they do exist.

If there is real estate involved and your mother or father can no longer adequately take total care of themselves, perhaps have limited capabilities, then think about searching for someone who is functional and capable enough to assist in giving care in exchange for a place to live; we don’t all age at the same rate. There are nurses who can visit daily; don’t tell me something can happen while they are alone, I know that.

A friend of my is currently doing life at one of these facilities in Mason City. I won’t name it. He fell in his room and injured his arm which required a trip to the hospital.  He laid on the floor for what he said was a long time before anyone found him.  He has two sons, one in Minnesota and one in Colorado.

We all must look into the mirror each day, for some its easy, for others maybe not so easy……

Peter Children

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