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

[Patricia Collum]

I'm sorry, living by Sun City, that's what I was thinking about when I read
this.
My mom died in a nursing home after telling me growing up that she never
wanted to live in one. (She was a nurse and had worked in them and tried to
kill herself before she became unable to). As a young mother in a distant
state, I felt helpless.
I can still dream about a place that will take on old SCA-folks even if it's
distant from the probable reality.

Cecily
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gorgeous Muiredach" <muiredach at bmee.net>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2002 10:26 AM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Sca-cooks digest, SCA Assisted living!


>> 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
>
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