My grandmother’s condition is getting worse and worse for quite a long while already. That is why she was moved into what we call a verzorgingshuis – I do not know the correct English word for it, it literally means ‘taking care off home’ – last Wednesday morning.
She has to stay there for a while, before they will move her into a verplegingshuis (nursinghome).
The Dutch government has refused to invest in homes like it. For a while now stories were getting out that some of the elderly do not get washed, do not get enough to drink / to eat, &c.
This is the first time that I witnessed the treatment first hand. It is absolutely appalling. I am disgusted by the way we, the Dutch, treat those who made this nation as rich as it is today. Everything we have, is because of their sacrifices.
The Dutch government, my government, does not seem to agree. Every year, less and less money is spent on the elderly. The result is that before mentioned homes have to let people go. Less staff, less time to actually take care off the people they are paid to take care off.
Not only do I blame my government for this, the ones who do have jobs in this ‘sector’, or area, are getting paid by taxpayers euros. The lazy bastards, however, do not seem to be willing to do a little bit more than minimally required of them. Yes, they do what their job description is, but when they have to do one small step more, they simply don’t.
My grandmother does not realize it any longer when she has to go to the bathroom, so to speak. She just ‘lets it go’. This, logically, means that people need to clean it up for her. Yesterday 4.30PM, she shit her pants (I am choosing these words deliberately since this is the cold hard reality and I do not see why I should make it sound any less cold, horrible and denigrating). When my parents came to visit her at 6.45PM they still had not cleaned the mess up. She was literally lying in her own shit for over 2 hours.
My parents and my moms sisters also noticed that, for two days in a row now, her dinner is standing on a table besides my grandmothers bed: cold and untouched. Someone has to feed her: she is shaking too much herself. Again, the ones who are payed to take care of her, consider themselves to be unable to do so. They just let her lay there. She is suffering from dehydration symptoms now, because she is also unable to drink without somebody helping her.
When my mother or one of my aunts confronts the ‘nurses’ (and I am using this term extremely loosely) they simply say that they cannot help it, that they do not have enough colleagues helping them out.
Although there is some truth in that, these ‘nurses’ should, perhaps, take their own responsibilities. They get payed by taxpayers euros. They get payed to take care of elderly people, who cannot take care of themselves. If this means working one hour extra per day, they should freaking do it. Instead of only complaining about what the government does and does not do, perhaps they could walk the extra mile themselves, while at the same time trying to convince the government (by influencing public opinion for instance) that it should invest more money in (health) care.
If they are unwilling to do so, they should go home, take care of the household, stop taking taxpayers euros and stop acting as if they are willing to do what it takes to take care of those, who cannot take care of themselves.
The real hypocritical part is that these ‘nurses’ admit that they cannot take care of her, that they know it, but that they agree to take her in nonetheless. Why? Because the government gives the ‘home’ money for every room that has a patient in it.
This is the sad truth of how we deal with our elderly people today.
I am disgusted.
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