Talking about Unsustainable!

When was the last time you have been in a nursing or elderly care “home”? Or maybe I should ask: “When was the first time?”

OK, a couple of suspected facts:

Many of the nursing homes, rehabilitation centers for the elderly and elder care facilities 

are listed of the NY Stock Exchange! These places are first: Profit Centers!

These homes send “patients” to the hospital for bladder and other infections and then upon return can bill Medicare for substantially higher fees for those elderly people;

The number of these people in “need” of end-of-life care will hugely increase by 2030 and thereby the cost of such care and the burden on the tax payer will increase with leaps and bounds.

These facts alone are kept away from the classroom and kitchen table. No one - well, pretty much so, has family discussions on what to do at end of life! Why not?

IT is a subject (End of Life) just not talked about. We Ooh and Aah about babies, but don’t come with what we do when life is - for all practical purposes - OVER! We, the people keep people alive, if that is what it is, because we don’t want to say

“Good Bye!”

                                    I repeat: We love to say “Hello!” and hate/avoid saying “Good-Bye!”

We, yes we tax payers, allow many of the very elderly people to be “stuffed” in “homes” and then leave the caring to minimum wage earners and we, ourselves are going to the beach or the movies!

Doesn’t this picture appall the reader?

If so, why don’t we talk about this?

If you are willing, contact: Maarten at maartenjp@mac.com

or join Compassion and Choices (compassionandchoices.org)