[Sca-cooks] Re: Sca-cooks digest, SCA Assisted living!

[Gorgeous Muiredach]

At 11:41 AM 11/16/2002, you wrote:

> >    9. assisted living encampment at Pennsic (Stefan
> > li Rous)
>  Ya know, at least here in the Midrealm, we have a
>goodly population that is creeping up into the 70 and
>80 year range.... A number of them have talked about
>all going into the same retirement community and
>taking it over!!
>Course, I don't think there are quite enough just SCA
>people to yet make in profitable to actually build our
>own, but maybe if we pooled resources with other
>re-enactment groups???? Just think one wing has Rev
>War, anther Civil War, another has the SCA and yet a
>fourth for old Tuchux!!!
>
>Course, if the SCA only was there, it could be divided
>into wings, ya know keep those English types over
>'there' while us continental Empire types control the
>main concourse!!

You know, taking the risk of being accused to be an old stick with no sense
of humour, I will say that I personally find it not funny at all to make
jokes about nursing homes like that.

As part of my job, I help people escape nursing homes.  There is about 14%
of the nursing home population in the US that is below the age of 45.  When
you enter a nursing home, the institution is allowed to take all your
money, whether you are on SSI at $550/month, or higher source of income
such as $2000 from SSDI.  Nursing home inmates receive a very chic
$31/month for spending money.  Less than Federal prisoners get.

In general, the living conditions are nasty, at best.  If any of you have
been to a nursing home, you can identify the smell.  A putrid mixture of
stale urine, and despair.  Yes, you can smell the despair in the air.

Not to mention the food in there.  There's the old joke of kids telling
their parents that if they don't behave they'll put them in nursing home
where they won't get fed meat.  Not too far from the truth.  And not a lot
of food they get, where there are sometimes near riots when snacks get put out.

A staff of mine who uses a wheelchair goes in the homes to meet with people
who expressed a desire to leave.  He was once forbidden to leave the
nursing home.  THey thought he was a resident.  The administrator wasn't
there, so the staff were keeping him.  He finally was able to leave.  But I
ask you, is it nursing home, or jail, where people there are not allowed to
leave?

NO ONE belongs in an institution.  With proper community support, we can do
away from nursing homes, retirement homes and the likes.  Considering that
in Illinois it costs about $65K to keep one person in a nursing home for a
year, yet that to pay for their rent and 24 hours a day or personal
assistance a day would cost approximately $24K/year, one cannot help but
question why we still have a system that is over 100 years old and quite
obviously not working.

I don't believe in taking myself seriously, but there are topics that are
not that funny.

"I'd rather go to jail than die in a nursing home".  FREE OUR PEOPLE!  NOW!!!


Gorgeous Muiredach the Odd
Clan of Odds
Shire of Forth Castle, Meridies
mka
Nicolas Steenhout
"You must deal with me as I think of myself" J. Hockenberry