Abuse Occurring in Nursing Homes
Would you ever allow your parents to be misdiagnosed and left for dead? Would you allow huge corporations to take advantage of their assets and vulnerability? The obvious answer for many and you the reader is NO. But if you are thinking of potentially sending your parents or elderly to a nursing home you may want to think twice.
In past times and in many cultures the elderly were and are treated with utmost respect and care. However, in recent times especially in the western world the elderly have constantly been mistreated and harmed by their family, sometimes even unknowingly. Using Mao’s Last Dancer as an example we can all find out how to properly treat our elderly and how treatment of the elderly has changed in the past few decades.
You may be under the impression that most will treat their elderly with respect, but sadly there are a fair few who abuse and take advantage of their own elderly sometimes even their own parents. Elder abuse can take many different forms. The most common forms of elder abuse are financial abuse and neglect. Neglect involves the failure of a carer to provide basic necessities such as food, shelter, or medical care, or preventing someone else from providing them. Most people nowadays will place their elderly in nursing homes to be taken care of. This might be the reason you read this report and this can always be in good heart for many reasons like lack of time, money and resources (e.g. A spare bedroom or lack of space) to take care of them but you still may visit them and keep them company. However, some sadly lack care for their parents and in order to get rid of them, send them away to a nursing home. Although nursing homes promise to take good care of the elderly this can be far from the truth.
In a summary of the report “Abuse of Residents Is a Major Problem in U.S. Nursing Homes” which investigates elder abuse in the state of California in 2001 it is stated that one-third of the nursing home residents are being abused, 30% of the nursing home residents are caused actual harm or death, over 50% are being given wrong drugs and 10 out of the 15 largest nursing home chains have been charged with: Fraud and/or unjust enrichment, racketeering, wire fraud, etc. This leads to the fact that only 2% of Californian nursing homes meet the standards of the law. With this evidence, you probably are reconsidering your potential decision to send your elderly to a nursing home. However, with the right research and care taken in your decision, you can find a nursing home that treats the elderly well and has good intentions when taking care of them. Although some are good, you may have reasonably lost trust in nursing homes and a great example of how to treat your elderly with respect and care is in the book Mao’s Last Dancer.
Mao’s Last Dancer is displayed from the perspective of Li Cunxin and presents a level of respect, care, and love that we should all strive to show towards the elderly. For example, the entire family does not even think of touching their dinner before their Dia (dad) and Niang (mum) begin to eat. Another example is just the way they speak and act towards their parents. The love for his parents is displayed exceptionally when Li moves away from his family and is shown through the despair he goes through being separated from them. Throughout the entire book, there was not one example of disobedience shown towards Li’s parents. This book displays a golden example of how we should treat our parents and I recommend reading this book even if you think you treat the elderly with care as I think everyone can learn from the example of Li Cunxin.
To summarise I feel that our society today has strayed far from the level of respect that should be displayed to our elderly. I feel that we should take a stance against elder abuse and the abuse occurring in nursing homes prospering to show the respect shown by Li Cunxin in the book Mao’s Last Dancer.
