Treating women with dignity

I was appalled to read this Editorial title:
'Little old ladies are crashing the system' MARGARET WENTE
First they blamed women for being raped, now they blame our precious elderly women for being ill, frail, or blame their caregivers for placing them in hospital. I have a pretty low opinion of Ms. Wente, perhaps it was her editor? I hope so.

Why do we blame the women, do you suppose? We know that senior women are the most impoverished. Many of our homemaker grandmothers and mothers were stay-at-home moms. They don't have pensions. My generation is juggling children and failing parents. I gave up a phenomenal teaching job, with a new, gem of a principal, and a classroom community of precious gr. 8s, to care for my parents.

Where does the blame lie? The lack of beds, the unpreparedness for physicians, with little time, many chronic care patients, with complicated comorbidities. But the media blame the women.

• We don't blame the many nurses, who monitor CADDs to ensure that our palliative patients are not in pain. The medical community, it has been said, has a 17 - 20% shortage of nurses.
• We don't blame the physicians, who march into a hospital room and declare, "She just won't die!" and provide less than helpful homecare or palliative care. Or the shortage of geriatricians in this country.
• Don't blame taxpayers who, like the Americans, want to be able to pay for private insurance plans, but not pay for other's healthcare: those in poverty, between jobs, or the working poor. Insurance companies who can deny their American members at the drop of a hat.

I am shocked at the tone of this article and some comments. We blame adult children (primarily women, daughters, daughters-in-law) who cannot cope with an ill senior. Hospitals who send them home, telling the daughter to provide care for mother, father, mother-in-law, father-in-law who all had surgeries.

My late father, 2007, with one of his favourite PSWs

We cannot blame the system, we can blame the women for being ill, not the shortage in trained Personal Support Workers (PSWs) who are undertrained, inadequately trained, not regulated, nor monitored by any agency. We do not blame the government for the lack of foresight in naming Aging at Home as a priority, but not providing further funding. nor do they rely on much but for-profit agencies. Long-term Care homes who reheat 'retherm' meals, which are awful, do not provide fresh fruit, yet send dividends to shareholders. Something like 5/6 of LTC homes are for-profit. Is this right?

The good news is that many nurses, working and retired, are spearheading projects, like Hospices, and supporting an organized system of caring for these frail, at-risk elders in our community. Most want to be home. Most want highly trained medical personnel to help them in their homes, or in residences, not institutions.

Look around your community. You'll see many seniors volunteering and keeping their hands, brains, and bodies busy. Knitting for others. Creating quilts for raffles, or family and friends.