A tad bit scary

[jordonj]

I saw this on some webpage or another...several news sites have it.

Woman Refuses to Leave Hospital

[quote] It

[Craig.]

What i want to know is, why isnt her daughter offering to take her in till she finds a place?

[Hagar]

Sands said her mother's best option would be to get nursing care in her own home, but the house is in disrepair, uninhabitable after several trees fell on the roof. She also said she can't take care of her mother herself.

I would have thought the obvious answer would be to sell her home & for the daughter to give her a room in her own home. The proceeds from the sale could be used to move to larger premises if necessary & hire professional nursing care. The problem is not so much the increasing number of elderly people, it's the failure of their offspring to take responsibility for them in their dotage. All too often they are hidden away in some rotten nursing home & conveniently forgotten once they're incapable of looking after themselves. When they die all the people who should have been caring for them creep out of the woodwork & fight over who gets what.

[jordonj]

Where it's not so simple (bear with me)...

My Stepfather did as much as he could for his mother.  She lived over three hours away.  He and his brother would take shifts staying with her.  She had alzheimers and was in denial big-time.

She was very independent and a tad bit uncooperative about her care plan.  They kept her in her home as long as they could, but eventaully had no choice but to move her to their home.  She was not happy about that!  She would go into screaming fits about wanting to go home.  They had to remove the knobs from the stove as she would otherwise start a fire (by trying to cook something then walking away and forgetting it).  They had to hide any snacks or treats as she would sneak into the kitchen and steal them (and on some level, she knew what she was doing: she would only go in when nobody else was in there).

She was a heavy smoker too...she would fall asleep with cigarettes, so getting those away was a fight in and of itself.  Most people with alzheimer's become night wanders (they lose the ability to tell the difference between night and day), and she was no exception.  They were down to getting 3 hours of sleep a night!

Eventaully she fell and broke her hip.  For this reason, they had no choice but to put her in a nursing home.  Lifting her was out of the question:  she was not light after all, and her behavior caused the local nursing agencies to refuse her case...nor could they afford a private nurse.

The point I'm trying to make Hagar, is that not everyone ages with as much grace as yourself, my granfather, and Fozzer.

Many people should not be driving (though they still have lower accident rates than teenagers), and getting them to give up their driving priviledges can be a major fight.

I know people who have taken elderly parents in and had them become abusive (the elderly parent will sneak up and hit or worse).  One woman got shot by her elderly mother!  Another was running her daughter and son-in-law ragged.  I know a nurse who would get a home care to babysit her grandmother so that she could have a break...only to have her grandmother hyperventilate so she had to take her to the hospital (and yes, the grandmother would do it on purpose).  And there is almost no government help available for private in-home care here in the US.  So if you're poor...you often cannot afford to take in a parent.

Then of course, there's the question of whether the parent in question can be moved, or even wants to live with their child (some prefer the nursing home).

There's always a rest of the story in these cases Hagar...

[Craig.]

Jordan. The woman in this case has stated shes perfectly healthy. And with her bill running over $1 million, it should not be a case of, whether this woman wants to move in with her daughter. If there is no good reason for her not to, then she should give the bed upto someone who really needs it. ones shes out of the hospital, they can find something more permanent.

[Hagar]

The point I'm trying to make Hagar, is that not everyone ages with as much grace as yourself, my granfather, and Fozzer.

Thanks for that although I'm comparatively young as yet & fortunately have my health. My greatest fear is that I'll succumb to that terrible Alzheimer's disease. I've seen the results of it for myself as I think you have. I would not wish that on my worst enemy.

However, from your original quote & as Craig points out that is not the case here. Unfortunately since the family has become dysfunctional in the Western world most people no longer care for their aged relatives once they become frail. I know there are exceptions & some people go to extremes to keep them happy, sometimes giving up their career to do so. It's not easy to generalise but in this case these people seem to be swinging the lead. There's far too many people like that around these days. IMHO

[jordonj]

Jordan. The woman in this case has stated shes perfectly healthy. And with her bill running over $1 million, it should not be a case of, whether this woman wants to move in with her daughter. If there is no good reason for her not to, then she should give the bed upto someone who really needs it. ones shes out of the hospital, they can find something more permanent.

How do you know this woman's daughter even has room or can afford to care for her mother (remember that the mother is bedridden due to her legs).

How do you even know they live in the same area?  Remember, the article says she refuses to live anywhere else?

Generalizing is dangerous...remember she is in the position because she is suing the nursing home...

There are people who would care for their elders if they could and some do at a risk to their own health.  Remember what I said about several becoming violent?

The point I was trying to make is that there are cracks forming in the system to provide care for our elders...and it's going to get worse.

[Craig.]

I said IF there are no good reasons. None were stated, and usually in these cute granny VS evil hospital stories papers like to include every detail that can work against the hospital. If there was a good reason she couldn't then they would have put it in. I dont see "i dont want to live anywhere else" as a good reason. If i needed that hospital bed for myself or a family member and they said it wasnt available because some old lady didnt want to live somewhere out of town, i wouldn't be at all sympathetic.

[Hagar]

I don't know about the US as the situation there is completely different from what I'm familiar with. It seems to me that this is nothing to do with the hospital at all. In cases like this the reponsibility should be on the government or the state to provided proper care for these people. I've heard of similar cases in the UK where valuable hospital beds are occupied by elderly people who should be in residential homes. The problem is that there are no suitable homes in the local area to take them. Moving someone out of the area they've known all their lives & possibly separating them from their loved ones is just plain cruel. You wouldn't do it to cat. I was disgusted when I read about an elderly couple being parted for the last few months of their lives when their residential home was closed down. The people responsible for this will be old themselves one day.

[jordonj]

No easy answer...for the case you mention...what alternatives were there?

[Hagar]

No easy answer...for the case you mention...what alternatives were there?

Not closing the home?

[Anti-Societys Snake]

The american sociaty is becoming all regulations and "What needs to be done". Not to mention how bush is sending us slowly into dictatorship by dictating morality.... such as banning homo marrige because he belives it is against the bible. That is compleatly agaist the constittution and even the bible. Where is my seperation of church and state?

[TacitBlue]

Hanzaki,
        Exactly, Im glad other more people are starting to notice that about bush.

      As for the elderly thing, I hope I never get to the point that I need to be in a nursing home. Id rather die on my feet.

[Papa9571]

Where is my seperation of church and state?

You know I would like somebody to point out where, in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independance, the phrase seperation of church and state appear?

Or the rules that define that? I have yet to find that anywhere in either of those two documents. Maybe I am blind but wasnt our country fouded with a strong belief in God and christianity? If not why does all of our money say In God We Trust?

Methinkith its time to read the history books again and discover how this country was founded, not listen to somebody else's skewed version.

[TacitBlue]

That dosnt mean we all have to be christian.