I would like to tell you that the following story is unique or rarely
seen in our society, but I can't do that because the fact is it's all
too typical. I'm referring to elderly neglect.
By neglect I don't necessarily mean "abuse" in terms of
wrongful mistreatment by someone on the staff at a nursing home that we occasionally read about in the papers--that is something completely
different (see footnote 1). What
I am talking about is emotional neglect of the elderly by the their own
family!
All too often, it seems, nursing homes and assisted living facilities become
places where the
elderly are sent out to pasture "to be with people their own
age" and essentially forgotten, abandoned, save for the occasional
visit and holidays. Over time these people become immensely lonely
and depressed, starved for attention. They come to feel no one gives a damn about
them, and, sadly, this often seems to be the case! (see footnote 2) It is on this ground
that their world and my world as a firefighter-paramedic meet.
I could cite multiple examples of this from my experiences, but there is one case in particular I would
like to share:
It was around 2 a.m. when the tones went off and my
engine company was dispatched to an 80 year-old female with
"difficulty breathing" at one of the assisted living
facilities in our district.
The first thing one could not help but notice upon entering her room
was the abundance of Christian paraphernalia: several pictures of Jesus
on the walls (each of the blond-haired and blue-eyed variety), numerous
crosses, porcelain statuettes, framed needle-work scripture passages, a
bookshelf full of Christian books and videos by authors such as Billy
Graham, Pat Robertson, Bill Bright, James Dobson and others of the ilk,
and a worn King James Bible open on the table beside her.
There were also dozens of photos of family: photos of her children and
many grandchildren, an old black & white wedding photo of her and
her now long-deceased husband, along with other more recent (but still
old) photos of her husband. In short, the room was a shrine.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, she also had the television tuned-in to one of
those Christian evangelist channels that preach "God's love"
while begging you to "open your pocketbooks..."
The lady was sitting in a chair next to the end-table with the Bible
on it. She had a sad look in her eyes, but otherwise did not
appear to be in any distress. As I usually do, I introduced myself
and knelt down to one side so that I could speak with her eye-to-eye
from an unassuming stance. I went through the usual gamut of
questions; she had no chest pain, no difficulty breathing (which is what
we were called there for), no dizziness, no headaches, no numbness, no
nausea, no bleeding, no physical pain at all. Her lung sounds were
clear, her heart rhythm was normal, her blood pressure was normal for
her.
So why were we here? The answer to that became apparent
as the lady began telling us about her children and her
grandchildren. She wanted to tell me stories about all these past
"happy times." Suddenly I knew why we were here, she was
lonely! She had discovered, from previous experience, what happens
when you call 911--you get six people (4-firefighters and 2-ambulance
people) who are there for you, and you get them right now, not
tomorrow, not next week, not just on holidays, but now!
It wasn't our medical skills this lady needed. It wasn't a
voice on the other end of a telephone. It was our physical
presence, our touch, our eye contact, our attention to her, that
she needed, and that's what we gave her. When I took her hand in
both of my hands she began to cry, and for the next 20 minutes I just
sat next to her and gave her my full attention while she told a few
stories. Eventually she started to smile a little and her tears of
sadness turned to tears of, if not joy, then, at least, relief--for
now.
Eventually we had to get back in service, but before leaving we
rechecked all her vital signs to make sure the emotional event had not
turned into a physical event (it had not).
Sometimes it's the simplest things that make all the difference in
the world!
Conclusion:
This lady was having an emotional event that was every bit as much an
"emergency" as any physical ailment. She felt abandoned,
she felt no one cared about her, she felt lonely. And while she
may have held-out for some time under the illusory placebo effect of a
personal Jesus figure who "loves her" and "is with her in
her times of need," ultimately such disillusion is laid bare, and
the person will grasp for that which really does make a
difference for the social beings that we are--physical touch and
attention from real people in the real world (see footnote 3).
(Footnote 1): I think
it's important to note that the vast majority of these health
care workers are hard-working professionals that do care about
the patients they care for and the quality of care they provide.
It is unfortunate that the few bad apples that make the
headlines cause additional stress for all the good ones out
there.
It takes a special type of person, a very strong person, to work in
a nursing home/hospice setting (these facilities are much different
than assisted living facilities, by the way). In certain aspects
I think their experiences are even harder than my own in terms of how
they must deal with sickness, dying and death on an extended basis
where they not only get to know the patients on a personal level, but
also their families; contrarily, the firefighter will have only
limited contact with the patient and family--minutes or hours as
opposed to days or weeks. The area where the firefighter and
paramedic experiences the tragedy of death in much greater magnitude,
I think, is in the sudden or traumatic deaths of children and young
adults. Outside of experiencing the death of one's own child, I
can think of few things more devastating to the emergency medical
worker than having a child die right in front of them in spite of
their best efforts to save them.
(Footnote 2): It's
important to point out that while there most assuredly are many
neglected elderly in these facilities, there are also many that are not
neglected by their families. The purpose of this essay is not to
ignore the good, but to bring light to a very real problem in society
today in regard to the elderly.
(Footnote 3): As is
always the case when relating such stories, those
"Christians" that read them will ultimately try to give
Jesus credit for the "good outcome" resulting from the
efforts of real people; they will say, "well, it wasn't really you
performing these acts of kindness and compassion for a person in need;
rather, it was really Jesus doing His wonderful works through
you--you were simply the vehicle he chose to utilize in order to
perform His divine works! Praise Jesus!"
Such statements are not only unsupportable by any evidence
whatsoever, but they are in fact self-refuting suggestions! They
are self-refuting on the grounds that Christians find it necessary to impose
their presuppositions upon the acts
of mere humans, giving credit to Jesus, in order to justify their
belief in the supernatural. If "miracles" truly
occurred, and they were obviously beyond anything possible in the
natural world, and they could be attributed to the works of a
particular supernatural being, then there would be no need to make
such gross rationalizations--it would be obvious to all!
Furthermore, it is insulting to not only the intelligence of the
informed freethinker for someone to claim s/he is not capable of doing
good without the help of some invisible spook in the sky no one has
ever seen or demonstrated to exist, but it is also a stark slap in the
face to those people in the world adhering to hundreds of other religions and
gods; people who could, and in many cases would, claim that it
was their God(s) that were actually performing these
"miracles" or "good
deeds," and not Jesus.