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In 1968 Antony Armstrong-Jones published a documentary "Don't Count
The Candles"
regarding
the tragedy of senior confinement. An 80 year old man was taken against his
will to a nursing home.
One scene showed him wistfully looking out the window as his relative left, one silent tear
sliding down his cheek.
NPR's Ina Jaffe reported in 2020 that many nursing and assisted living institutions are running on a shoestring, with understaffing while money is siphoned to owners'
pockets, owners who ask
Medicaid and Medicare for more money.
1. Excessive Profiteering B H Gray writes that 75% of these facilities are now for-profit ones. 2. Shoestring understaffing causes neglect and sometimes premature death. 3. The lack of ethical supervision from federal agencies, owners, and managers generates abuse from yelling at residents to physical assaults, chemical and physical restraints. 4a. Substandard food is a complaint across the US. Some facilities are spending as little as $6.00 a day per person, less than prisons. At one national chain, wilted lettuce salads, an occasional banana, say residents, are the some total of the 'fresh food'. 4b. In many assisted living and nursing homes as well as hospitals and prisons, kosher, halal, vegetarian and vegan food is difficult to obtain. 5. Noise .. talking and laughing loudly during midnight shift Loud sounds interfere with the sleep and health of residents. 6. Constant interruptions which wake up residents who don't want breakfast or are napping or on the phone etc. 7. Incarceration Living behind locked doors without the freedom to leave is imprisonment 8. Lack of privacy, including conjugal rights 9. Theft 10. Denial of the right to refuse medication or vaccines. In the last 4 years, NPR The FDA requires a label on antipsychotics (which should be called propsychotics) warning of possible homicides or suicides. Many of these medications cause a permanent shaking, the medical term abbreviated to 'tardiff'. 11. The right to refuse breakfast because residents have never eaten breakfast or because they want to sleep is not honored. 12. Abuse of Durable Power of Attorney 13. Premature Deaths: Poor air filtration systems, food poisoning, constant noise and interruptions, nurse and caregiver understaffing, abuse, isolation, and confinement depression are some factors of high death rates in assisted living and nursing home facilities. 14 Conflict of interest: Some facilities are owned by physicians who have a profit motive in filling empty rooms, turning their temporary patients into 15. There are virtually no black residents in these expensive jails, despite the fact that many 16 Isolation, says the AARP, is a factor in premature deaths among residents in these facilities.. 17 One doctor, a major investor in a new very expensive assisted living place, could not fill the empty rooms because of the cost. A wealthy older patient tried to change physicians. He obtained a medical power of attorney, had him institutionalized. When he worked to get an attorney, the doctor took away sent to him, and cancelled all visitors. Whenever the resident objected to staff, he was given an antidepressant against his will. After 9 months, tardiff dyskinesia was apparent, a constant shaking. The prison had turned into a Bastille. 18. Some health authorities question the prioritization of these facilities for resident vaccines, since these are often the most immune challenged or those with the most preexisting conditions, and therefore those most likely to have lethal side effects. 19. Well meaning relatives, relatives who want to protect the assets of a parent or other relatives, can kill the Spirit of another. Nursing homes and assisted living places have very high rates of death. 20. Unfortunately many of these places treat residents like cattle, forcing them to go to be weighed, to go to bingo or worship services or singalongs, ordering them back to their rooms if they are visiting others, etc. So many lose the desire to live, while existing in these places, that the buildings become slaughterhouses. Profiteering and neglect just-6-08-per-person-a-day-thats-lower-than-prison-120421 https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/federal-court-strikes-down-trump-administration-rule-allowing-refusals-health-care
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neglect
Profiteering, Abuse, Neglect At US Nursing & Assisted Living Facilities
The Elephant in My Cell
You came at a bad time.
A terribly, terribly bad time.
You showed up the moment I couldn’t stand to touch you.
I was afraid you were never going to come.
I should have been glad you came, but why am I not relieved?
Is it that crippling fear that the moment I touch you, you fade away like a ghost?
Is it that you might be a whistleblower looking for an insecurity to use against me later?
Or is it that you are trying to distract me from tending to my garden before it dies of thirst?
I want to shout, “Why didn’t you come sooner?!”
I want to shout, “Where were you when I needed you most?!”
I want to yell at the top of my lungs, “Would it kill you to tell me what’s driving you away from me?!!”
But I am too nice. Too kind and gentle to scream and point to the elephant in the room.
The very elephant that a sorcerer pulled out of his hat and crippled both of my limbs.
I never wanted to call for help because it reinforces the notion that I should still be in high school.
I’ve crawled around all year avoiding the other teenage drama queens that worship dragons.
Seems like they forgot that dragons like to steal our fortunes and our hearts. Before they eat them.
Spending time with my open-minded little brother has planted a seed of doubt in my head.
A seed that gets me thinking that all love does to me is waste my time experimenting with false hope.
My imaginary nights with a fallen angel goes along the lines of;
“Yes, yes, honey, shower me with hugs and kisses. Oh, my love, how I yearn for you.
Pleasure me with your lust until the water in your veins runs out and you become a raisin.
Only then, will I toss you in the sun and wonder why the hell I’ve never gotten lucky.”
When will the water cycle end for the both of us?
What compels Venus to bewitch me to make bad choices?
Why else do you think independent seekers with degrees in hand avoid commitment?
Our grandparents and parents are more patient than our generation is now
Because compared to us, they tended to their gardens and their raisins.
You did a bang-up job tending to me by showering me with promises you can’t keep,
With complex wisdom about human nature, stories of your struggle to get your education over with,
And the snuggles and touches that I wished were real more than the chains I dream of shattering.
You’ve made this game look so easy, you know?
All that had impressed me about you lately is how you’ve lured me into your arms,
Only to neglect me without warning when the sun was at its hottest.
Part of me does not wish to see you go because I tolerate the pain that your absence has left behind.
You scarcely have time on your hands, but would you care to join me for a cup of jasmine tea?
It won’t take long. What I want to know next is what else is new that you have yet to tell me?
Your Father's Mess!
Consistently calling me disrupting my work day just to tell me your father was really ill was a terrible mistake!
He was your father in action but a stranger to me; my well being he would always forsake!
How dare you expect me to stop what I was doing to bend over backwards for a man who always showed he didn't care about me?!?
My response mirrored his lack of concern for my life; and I don't give a fuck if you disagree!
He chose to be present in your life while absent in my life so don't act surprised that I am not really impacted by his departure!
He is gone now so you don't have any reason to contact me any further!
You had the nerves to contact me and suggest that I was responsible for trying to establish a relationship with your child neglecting dad!
The fact that you even think like that validates our lack of sibling relationship should continue to make me glad!
You disgust me and I am done with any involvement I was previously entertaining with you!
You have shown your true colors now your limited chapter in my life is also through!
You attempted to clean up your father's mess instead of staying in your lane!
For you to ever try to re-unite with me would substantiate that you're
Insane!
Let me see you again
Pretty face
Affable and sweet
Accept my invitation
Take the adjacent seat
Talk to me about your art and studies
The music you love
All that you find funny
And in our limited time together, consider my regret
I never told you about your eyes
Your beautiful hair
Or your apparent intellect
That when you left me that day, you never left my memory
That I dreamed about you since the day that you met me
That I suppressed my feelings, for fear of rejection
And I pushed them so far down, I forgot where I had left them
I will remain fond of you, far from when I leave
And in my absence I hope that you still think about me
I hope that you think about the laughs we shared and the connection I seeked
I hope that you turn my way, when you're looking for a friend
I hope that you still trust me
And let me see you again
Job Prospects
Job Prospects
By jfarrell
I helped a milkman on his milk-round;
My first job; I must have been about 8;
The milkman, my mum and dad,
Sat in the pub, one night;
Discussing my job prospects.
Dad went home his usual time;
Work in the morning;
“I think your son’s got a great future as a milkman;
Wanna come back to my place and talk about it?”
Well, why not?
An hour later finds me walking home ‘alone’;
Alone means….
Ten yards behind me my younger sister is screaming at mum;
Who is naked.
Because that’s how we got thrown out of the milkman’s house.
The beep-beep “lovely tits” from caveman motorists;
The lights in windows going on;
And faces pressed to the glass;
And the only prayer I can plead
Is “don’t see me, don’t see me”.
Along the main road;
Past the pub we’d left;
Past our school;
Onto our estate;
My sister screaming names I don’t need to mention.
My going to school next day was like a Clint Eastwood western;
Joyful sounds, giggling, kids playing;
I walk into the playground and….
Silence - blessed silence - for all of ten seconds;
Then chants and jeers.
I got bullied a lot at school, still can’t work out why.
I Am Free
I was a stone, skipping frantically over the water’s surface, only to sink to the unending depths, choking; desperate.
I was a leaf, briefly flashing stunning hue, then tumbling from the tree, slowly swirling to meet the hard, cold ground.
I was the setting sun, incredible beauty, bands of soft and radiant color, only to slip into the horizon, greeting the pitch of night.
I was a bird, soaring the open azure skies, only to be brought down with a violent arrow; overwhelming agony.
I was a rose, fragrant, full of life, breaking out of the bud, but petals soon fall, I crumble.
Never inhaling, loving warmth withheld, fear of the dark, the unknown, unbearable pain, shattered. I felt, despaired, experienced; yet battled. I was broken, but yet not…I fought, I rallied, finally breaking the chains that bound; unfettered.
I am free!
Garden
stumbling over garden
filled with dilapidated daisies
into a web of subconscious
emotional beating
pleasure fleeting
as the petals fly
/
twirling in your own neglection
neglection of self
tending to the other flowers
forgetting your own health
/
shifting sunhats
to cover up your eyes
woven in same subconscious
delayed response; washed out by light
/
Honey bees kissing flowers
You swat them as they speak
Off to steal their livelihood
Just to sweeten up your tea
/
stumbled over garden
filled with tiny weeds
into a field of subconscious
"all these weeds look like me"
/
and the familiarity is leaving
as the fall takes sight
a stain of subconscious
an existence lurking in the freckle in your eye
/
Posies leaking from your pocket
Flowers stay here to die
a garden of subconscious
a perennial spite
/
a drought of subconscious
weeds don’t know how to die
"Vegetable"
He never asked for anything,
Because he couldn't, he was mute,
But everyone would speak for him,
They would make demands
About what he wanted,
Without really ever knowing,
And I always wondered why,
If he could communicate for real,
Then why didn't they teach him
To read, type, blink, or sign,
And I decided that maybe
They liked him just as he was,
And I could never decide whether or not
That was good or bad,
But I still always think about him,
And more often in the winter,
The season of the year when he died,
Because in his death,
His life surely came full circle.
Cold.
.......
The Way Of Ignorance
All this time,
You were thinking
I had nothing to say,
The cockamamie way of
Those who blind you,
Blurring your reality,
Bringing you only
What is meant for you to
Hear,
See,
Touch,
Think,
Know,
Act on,
Be.
****
It is such
An Intentional
Violation to
Your being,
And to society
As a whole,
The obsession with
Control,
The removal
Of free-thought,
With malicious intent,
Infects us all,
And strips away,
Chiseling at all
That inspires
Faith,
Unity,
Harmony,
And self-worth
Of the individual
Destroying any and all
Human rights.
***
The awareness
Of Divinity,
Soul,
Heart,
Love,
Sentience,
Hope,
Honesty,
Kindness,
All lost at everyone's cost.
***
To know,
To see,
And possess
Vision,
Insight,
Self-introspection,
And achieve
Self-Actualization,
As it exists in
The Ethics of Human Rights,
Is not possible
Under this
Blindfold of deceit.
***
But the law
Of opposites
Tells me,
That one must
First know
What having a veil
Over their eyes
Is,
Before knowing
What
It is
Not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IUSZyjiYuY
3:51 PM 6/30/2013 ©