No respect for the elderly; nursing homes keeping cash and “starving” patients?

By Caribbean Medical News Staff
Could it be true? Can an adult octogenarian weigh less than 100 lbs. and be determined to be anorexic (by a medical doctor) while in nursing care? Will no one say a thing? Will the relative drag this elderly relative out or keep paying them to keep the relative emaciated and sick?
Where has the respect for our elder folk gone?
It is on their backs, that our communities were built, that our institutions were founded, that we were able to vote and how you and I were allowed to be the first graduates in a household while our parents cut canes or worked as maids and struggled to raise five children singlehandedly.
It has come to our attention that across the Caribbean from Bermuda to Barbados and beyond, the elderly are whittling away, losing weight, being under or over-medicated, under-stimulated, under-exercised all while Nursing Homes (not all) collect cash from with disinterested family members who have discarded loved ones. Some relatives are initially unaware of the treatment until they make a surprise visit to day care centres or homes to find an elderly relative in soiled adult diapers (though not incontinent), underfed or fed with foods sadly lacking in nutrients most needed by the elderly.
Our roving reports suggest that three calls made in Barbados spoke to hymn singing, a diet of luncheon meat and bread and a “cup o’ tea” and no other real food, activity, socializing and care, no TV. We would hate to think that this is the norm. The elderly have special dietary needs as well as special needs as it relates to physiotherapy. They are just an older version of you and me but with different needs but the need for stimulation and the requirement for fun and laughs and social interaction never leaves. Why depress our elderly this way? For cash?
Given their age, monitoring of their medication is important as well as monitoring conditions like hypertension, post-stroke behaviours (cognitive and physical), fall risk, gastrointestinal issues, heart and other problems that may go unnoticed if an untrained nurse does not pay attention.
Too much skimping
Reports reaching CMN even suggest that some homes across the region have pulled back on shopping for food, supplements like Ensure Plus and Ensure, buying processed foods and not cooking proper suppers, breakfasts and lunch or hydrating patients/residents as well as not providing adult incontinence wear. Signs abound speaking of the economic conditions while the physical and mental conditions of the elderly decline and they haul in the cash.
In a recent article in the press, Dr. Kenneth George (Barbados) spoke to the issue of some homes hiring unqualified nurses at nursing homes, lack of proper nutrition and lack of activity stating that the Ministry of Health (MOH) will not tolerate this behaviour in Barbados. But we are asking the Ministries of Health in CARICOM and the journalists to start calling names of institutions that have been found to have breached their duty of care to the elderly. If they fail to do so, then Caribbean Medical News stands ready to do so within the law.
Dumping the elderly
Our elder folk deserve better than to be “dumped” in hospices to “rot” for relatives never to return while enjoying the fruits of the parents’ labour. Our nursing homes are duty-bound to report abuses and neglect by children to Ministries where they observe the same and the said Homes are duty bound to care for those in their homes with a registered dietician in place, a registered nurse on hand and a physician close-by to examine patients in their care. The former Minister of Health in Barbados, the Hon. Donville Inniss had spoken to as many as 30 people being dumped at QEH and the cost to care the elderly whose relatives never returned.
Japan has made it law for the children of the elderly to visit their aging parents, something they did by rote until western habits invaded their cultural habits so revered by many across the world. In Japan and China, the elderly could no more be disrespected than the elders in Africa. Ironically, the US and UK have laws to protect the elderly and have several cases of abuse in nursing homes and even hospitals! The Caribbean is slow to enact any legislation that protects the elderly.
We have just heard that a patient has died in a nursing home in the region. Our condolences go out to the family since this death is now being treated as “unnatural”.
Nursing Homes…we are watching you as we watch the children of those in your care. We are depending on all Ministries of Health in CARICOM to urgently address these issues. We call even on the police to arrest those guilty of neglect, under any law which will find probable cause for the perpetrators all.