I've been involved in nursing (in some form or fashion) for 11 yrs.. Recently, we took in my elderly father-in-law.
I believe I have "been around" when it comes to geriatrics and LTC. The more I look around at what is going on with this the more depressed and hopeless I feel. Time after time, you see these little old people lose everything they have to go in the nursing home, and their dignity and dreams of leaving anything to their children slip right down the drain. One old lady told me, if she knew she was going to wind up in "this" kind of shape she would have offed herself before it got to the point it was (she owned a big farm that neither of her children would be inheriting, and she was really too high acuity to be at home) I could have said, Oh now, Ms. Brown, you don't mean that, you shouldn't say such thing! but I couldn't bring myself to be that hypocritical. It's got me to thinking about when I get old, if I live that long.
Why should healthcare be to the point where the middle class must accept being reduced to paupers to receive any benefit from it? Are there really so many old and infirm people using the recources and putting a strain on the government that it drives up the cost of everything to the point only the extremely wealthy can afford it?
What's the point? Work and slave your whole life so the little bit of property/savings you were able to accumulate can be used to keep you hanging onto life a little while longer in a nursing home? Do you think those people worked and saved because they intended for their money to go to "the company"?
You see all kinds in the nursing home, the virtuous and the trash of society, and in the end no one of them are any better off than the other.
The nursing home equalizes everyone (before their time to be equalized comes).
It also got me to wondering about the real purpose for giving Dr. Kevorkian all the attention he got in the news. It's unknown to some people, but the government really does plan ahead. As cold and heartless as it sounds now, with more and more old and infirm being kept alive longer now, maybe all this technology has backfired on the government and perhaps this was to get society acclimated to the idea of human euthanasia? Of course, they had to bring about the idea in a more subtle way (Dr. Kevorkian) but you know they couldn't just push a law in our faces saying The nursing homes are full and you can't afford the services on your own, but now you can take Grandma down to the clinic and we can make this easier for everyone.
I honestly believe that is where this is heading, though.
Gives me a lot of hope for what the future holds for me...