so, there was a story i was going to tell you. then there was this thing that happened that i was also going to tell you about. all last night, during the commercial breaks while watching survivor and the apprentice, i kept thinking “i should really write that down so i don’t forget.”. then i’d argue with myself by thinking “oh, don’t worry, this shit is good. you can’t possibly forget it.”.
guess what!
yeah, i forgot it. instead you get a photo and peek into my sad little pea brain.
while i’m here, on the radio the other day (have i mentioned i’m totally stuck on talk-radio lately? i’m all about cknw since xfm became the new sleep-aid station) they were talking about this couple who, after 63 years of marriage, at the ages of 90 and 95, are now in extended care. but, they are not in the same facility. they are on opposite sides of this city. this is the first time in those 63 years that they have been apart. he phones his wife five times a day, but his speach isn’t what it used to be and it doesn’t nearly make up for having his bride with him.
the government is saying that they are classified as different care categories and the facility he is in doesn’t take patients of her category and vice versa. they are unable to be together for the most frustrating and idiotic reason ever created by man: bureaucracy.
while listening to this story on the radio, driving home in traffic, i actually started to cry. it absolutely broke my heart. anything to do with the abuse, neglect or disenfranchisement of our senior citizens angers and saddens me beyond description. these are the people who built the world we enjoy. they gave us all our freedoms and liberties. they worked day and night to ensure that we did not have to. that as they age they are slowly demoted to second- and third-class citizens is not right. that governments continually chip away at the services and infrastructure they need most is much more morally corrupt and unchristian than two men vowing to love each other before an officiant.
i just hope that when the people who make these decisions reach their golden years they are treated with just as much respect and generosity as they are bestowing now.
I would hope that their children could take care of them and let them be together. My mom has been getting worried lately about being put in a home (she has a way to go yet, she’s 61 this month). I plan to take care of her myself as long as I can. I realize that there are some situations where medically, a person should (maybe) be in a home, but isn’t that where Home-Care can come in? A nurse friend of mine spent 4 years doing home-visits to seniors to give them the medical assistance they needed…
It breaks my heart, too.
Wow… That is an extremely sad story. It makes you wonder if some of these politicians fail to understand what humainty is anymore.
Ugh. I have worked in government all my college and professional career – at the federal, state, county, and municipal levels and I can tell you that these stories wrench my heart and at the same time I am not shocked (typical government bureaucracy).
Also, TD, if I may… it’s not about politicians and humanity. It’s about a government system that is designed around the processing and filing of “this form for that person means X and this form for the other person means Y” and so on. A system that was designed to be efficient in some aspects turns into a paperwork, cold-hearted nightmare. The regulations that went into designing the placement procedure probably never took this into account, so whatever entity or committee drafted this idea never anticipated this happening.
I can see why in a sense… women often outlive men significantly, and also the problem is that health deteriorates at a higher rate only after one spouse dies. Hardly does the health decline happen at equal stages. Hence, they never considered the possibility of this occuring, or they could have designated a multi-use, multi-care facility.
No matter what though, it is a sad story indeed.
That’s my two cents.