Hospitals Not To Blame

Hospitals are not cruel when they tell older patients to go home. They are being discharged because doctors gave them the necessary treatment and wrote prescriptions for home use.

Beds are for sick people, not patients who dread going home for fear of being alone. Home can be the old family home where it’s just them and the dogs or a room in an old age home. More expensive retirement homes have apartments of some sort. It’s just one room in cheaper ones and has many disadvantages including bed bugs.

In the hospital, older patients get human warmth. They can make friends in the common lounge or with the patient in the same cubicle. Nursing staff drop by to take their blood pressure and administer medication. Food servers are in and out with breakfast, lunch and dinner. Someone will come and give them a bath if they are incapable of doing it themselves. That is all human warmth.

Hospitals receive neglect complaints from family members who pretend to love aged parents. They seldom do. If they did, they would take them in, and live with them. Hospitals and the government cannot be blamed for a social system that preaches privacy for the youth, then total neglect when they get old.

There are no old age homes in rural societies. Older citizens are not a problem because they are part of active home life: fishing, weaving, building houses, story telling, cooking and training kids how to manage their natural environment.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.