The Salvation Army is leaving

"aged care".  The announcement did not surprise me. They were small players in the field anyway. There were only around one thousand five hundred residents in nursing homes and two thousand getting "in-home" care. It is these two groups who will be most affected by any changes. There are others living in "independent" accommodation in units who will need to make, or have others make, arrangements. 

The Salvation Army's excuse for leaving aged care behind has been the cost and the increasing rules, regulations and other red tape around running such facilities. Given what I know about all this it is quite extraordinary that anyone would be involved in such places and even more extraordinary that anyone would believe they can make a profit out of such places. 

There are alarming stories coming out of aged care and into the media at all times. There are places which now allegedly charge for any sort of entertainment including having your own television set in your own room. They will charge to have your mail delivered to your room, for your medication to be administered and more. 

Looking back I know we were fortunate the Senior Cat was alert and articulate. Perhaps he was also fortunate we were very regular visitors. He had other visitors too. I was all too well aware that some residents never left their rooms, that nobody visited. The level of care they received was barely adequate. There was no attempt to provide any sort of stimulation for them.  Good care is expensive. It is very expensive. You cannot provide good care and make a profit. You cannot provide good care and even cover all the costs. 

The Salvation Army had a facility here. It went by the name "Sunset Lodge" which in itself says a lot. The SA divested itself of the place years ago. It has been replaced by another organisation and given a different name. I have been in and out to visit over the years. It is perhaps marginally better now than it was under the SA. For them it seemed to be a business to be run as efficiently and at as low a cost as possible. I was also aware of subtle, and sometimes not quite so subtle, pressure placed on residents and their relatives to leave substantial gifts and even an entire estate to the SA. 

One very elderly and still very alert resident told me how she was "advised" about what was "expected".  Her response to me was, "The young staff are mostly nice but I don't really like the management dear. They all expect to receive as well as give."  It was by no means an exaggeration and no doubt happens elsewhere as well.

My mother's parents died relatively young but my father's parents lived to a great age. Too frail to care for themselves even with help they eventually lived in a small hospital that had a half a dozen beds for the aged. Although he lived more than an hour and a half away from the city by car my father went to see his parents every weekend. Had we lived in the city he likely would have gone more often. I was away on the other side of the world by then but my mother told me my father never saw it as a burden to visit. It was simply the right thing to do. All I could do was write letters for him to read to them.    

Good aged care will always be expensive. It is the price we should be willing to pay. We are living longer and often working longer. It is too easy to see the frail elderly as a financial "burden" but they too had their elderly to care for, often at even greater expense. Aged care should not be about cost or benefit to others. It should be about caring for those who cared for us when we could not care for ourselves.