By: Jim Taylor
Seniors need advocates to fight their battles
I am not looking forward to growing
old.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t
object to growing older. At 70, I’m more comfortable with myself than I was. I
know my limitations now. I don’t expect to climb
I know myself better too. I’m
no longer a pawn pushed around by hidden agendas. I don’t always respond calmly
and sensibly to situations. But at least I understand why I react as I do.
Well, most of the time.
But growing older is different
from growing old. “Old” implies dependency, helplessness, decrepitude…
And there are always parasites who see others’ weakness as their opportunity.
Periodically, newspapers carry
a story about, say, a widow talked into a $25,000 re-roofing job. Not only did
she pay twice what the job was worth, the roofers did such sloppy work she had
to pay someone competent to re-do it.
Or perhaps a failing father
opens a joint account with his daughter, to reduce probate fees. Then she – or
the guy she’s living with—bilks the father of his savings.
Sometimes victims can fight
back. Other times they’re barely aware that they have been robbed – of their
money, their independence, or their dignity.
Unable to open doors
June
Ross has made it her mission to fight battles that seniors can no longer fight
for themselves.
A former national
representative for CUPE, the Canadian Union of Public
Employees, Ross took a year “just getting used to
retirement.” Then, wanting to “give back to the community,” she took training
as a Seniors’ Advocate, along with 411 others.
Among other activities as a
seniors’ advocate, Ross visits assisted living facilities. “Assisted living”
(defined in provincialese) means “residences that
provide housing and a range of supportive services, including personalized
assistance, for seniors and people with disabilities who can live independently
but require regular help with day-to-day activities.”
Those “day-to-day activities”
include:
- help with…eating, dressing, bathing, grooming or mobility;
- assistance with medications…;
- providing nutritious meals or modified diets as required; and
- assistance with purchases or paying bills…
In one of those residences, an
83-year-old woman with severe osteoporosis, who moves slowly with a walker, and
“who probably weighed 80 pounds soaking wet,” told Ross that she couldn’t push
open the main exit doors.
; The owner replied that installing automatic door
openers would cost $3,000. She couldn’t afford it.
Pulling in help
Ross called in
B.C.’s building code stipulates
that doors cannot require more than eight pounds pressure to open. The
building’s exit doors required only seven pounds. That made them technically
legal.
“What does it matter if it’s
eight pounds or two pounds?” Ross demanded. In case of fire, “if you’re in a
wheelchair or a walker, how the hell do you get out?”
“The building meets the fire
code,” Lambert told Paul Walton, reporter for the
The provincial Office of the
Registrar for Assisted Living sets criteria that facilities must meet. But any
facility can also de-register at any time, freeing its operators from measuring
up to government health and safety regulations.
This particular facility did.
“As it did so,” reported
Walton, “it was required to notify only those residents getting assisted living
support. Other residents – who moved in expecting to get the service when they
began to need it – were not told about the change.”
The Daily News refused
to focus entirely on the owner. It blamed, instead, “the unfortunate
combination of bureaucratic bumbling and general apathy that has left many
seniors living out their twilight years in a manner they might not have
expected.”
“I didn’t think I’d end up like
this,” said one unhappy senior, “but I did.”
Pros and cons of
professional care
Many
seniors go into care facilities because their families can no longer care for
them. Children and spouses get ground down by the daily duties of feeding,
cleaning up, counting pills, coping with memory loss…
Professional caregivers have
training for handling medications. For lifting a frail
person. For changing beds and clothing efficiently.
But instead of having just one
person to look after, the professional may have dozens.
Almost inevitably, a few of
those staff caregivers will begin to see their charges simply as objects to be
processed with a minimum of inconvenience. The more care that patients require,
the more they disrupt the smooth functioning of the institution.
A few years ago, concealed
video cameras caught workers tossing an elderly woman around the way baggage
handlers treat airline luggage.
The elderly and infirm can no
more protest against ill-treatment than they can run a marathon.
Many are not well enough to
vote. They pay minimal taxes. They are no longer active members of political
parties.
Become a squeaky wheel
The
general population has no idea,” June Ross fumes. “It is actually euthanasia by
government for our seniors!”
The kind of view doesn’t make
her popular with some owners and operators.
Or with
government officials. She’s doing the job they were supposed to be doing
– and making them uncomfortable when they’re not doing it.
B.C.’s Assisted Living
legislation authorizes the Registrar “to receive and investigate complaints …
including the power to enter and inspect a residence where there is a concern
about the health or safety of a resident.”
It doesn’t happen enough.
If change is going to happen,
says Ross, it will have to come from the seniors’ families. “They have to be
advocates for their elderly,” she says. “They have to be the squeaky wheels.”
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Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study
groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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