Lest We Forget

Discussions about senior care in nursing homes and residences abound since the tragic fire in Quebec. Much of my nursing career has been caring for the elderly in hospitals and dementia units. While I listen to the various discussions, whether at coffee with friends, at work with colleagues, or on the radio, I hear an interesting - and disturbing - level of detachment. Discussion is about policies and protocols about safety and security, what should be done, what hasn't been done. Discussion frequently turns to the equally tragic deaths, deemed murder in the press, of patients killed by another patient in the same facility.

Opening and improving policies and protocols, and the enforcment of them, is paramount. Protection of all  patients and clients is also paramount, while respecting their individuality. These men and women, these parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers have failed and failing neurological systems. Social filters that were learned over decades for polite skills are clogged and ineffective, maybe no longer even existent. For some, learning the same sort of social skills may not have been part of their experience.

Our society has placed, quite indiscriminately, these elderly and frail of mind individuals from usually very disparate upbringings, values, education, and cultures, in closed environments, with limited numbers of caregivers and health professionals. Education and levels of experience can be as varied as the patients in their care. If there are sufficient funds and family support, there may be an opportunity to live in a more pleasing and fitting environment. If not, it’s a crap shoot - pardon my blunt cynicism.

Have we forgotten that these individuals ~ not ‘this demographic’ ~ but these individuals, deserve care that does not judge, that does not punish but that provides them with respectful and safe care? 

“Our society must make it right and possible for old people

not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of 

a civiliztion is the way that it cares for its helpless members.”

~ Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973)