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12 years ago
Mutual love.Sunday, July 24, 2011
TW is fortunate to still have grandmothers on both his maternal and paternal sides with him. His paternal 'Ah ma' lives with him currently and through his interaction with her, I've learnt so much about about filial piety towards grandparents.
He was there every day when she was admitted into hospital for a hip operation after having a fall at home.
He fought with an aunt who tried to convert her religion from Taoism to Christianity and caused her to have a mild stroke. He strongly believed that his grandmother should have the freedom to continue believing in whichever faith that had been with her for 80 over years. He even clips her nails for her, because sometimes she'd cut until too short and bleed. He is always thinking of ways to make her smile, even by hiding behind a pillar and playing 'hide-and-seek' every time he reaches home. He would call out, "Ah ma!" and then quickly hide behind a wall, and his grandma would frantically look around and say, "Come out!", and then we would appear, and she would have the happiest smile ever on her face. She must be thinking, 'these two grandchildren, sooo naughty!' but still plays along with us. To her, family is everything. She devotes her life to taking care of her grandchildren, even now when she is less able to cook for them, she constantly reminds them to eat their meals. Waits up for her grandchildren to reach home, even till 11+pm when she normally sleeps at 9:30pm. She's just so ready to show care and concern, even to an 'outsider' like me. It's nice to talk with her, (although my Hokkien isn't very good), to see her funny facial expressions, and it makes me even happier to see her smile. She has also been taking medicine to slow down the development of dementia, as she was diagnosed with mild dementia a few months ago. Ever since taking the medicine, she has become more alert, and can hold conversations with us. The only bane is that the medicine doesn't come cheap, it costs $200+ for 4 weeks.  I wish for many many such years to come. And meanwhile, we are not going to take it for granted. :) Horrifying elder abuse at Nightingale Nursing homeThursday, July 21, 2011Video footage of elder abuse at Nightingale Nursing home Shocking video footage taken by one of the elderly resident's son has revealed a serious case of elder abuse at one of Singapore's 60 nursing homes. Nightingale nursing home, has since shot to infamy after footage of the abuse was released by the media. The home has been suspended from admitting more patients until further notice and 2 nurses were punished, and 1 has quit. All are foreign nurses. Nurses working in nursing homes here are mostly foreigners. Singaporean nurses are less willing to give up their jobs in acute hospitals for fear of losing their skills as the job in homes entails mainly bedside nursing. There are pros and cons to hiring foreign nurses to take care of the elderly in Singapore. Pros being they usually are more committed to provide long-term care in their profession, and require a lower pay. But one major disadvantage is the language barrier, which often results in miscommunication, or lack of cooperation. It is indeed stressful to be taking care of several residents at once, and some elderly may be abusive towards nurses too, such as refusing to take medication, or even spitting on them. In such cases, retaliation abuse is still not justified, as nurses are the appointed caregivers, and the elderly do not have an equal standing with them in terms of health and strength. Therefore, to prevent such incidents from happening again in future, it is also very important to take care of nurses' well-being and mental state, and to put in place proper ways for them to give feedback or share their feelings. She had, but now lost.This is a post that I've written for my personal blog before I started this blog dedicated to the topic of ageing with love, but it is relevant so I am posting it here.. You may also visit my personal blog for other snippets of my life. :) Today, my partner and I met a lonely lady at a HDB void deck while walking back from Old Airport hawker centre. When we saw her, she was having violent spasms and had lost hold of her walking stick. For a moment, she leaned backwards and was almost going to fall over, TW and I quickly ran forward to grab hold of her. We aided her back to the bench at the old citizen's corner where she tried to walk from. She was apologetic while explaining in fluent mandarin that her spasms are due to overactive nerves and are not done on purpose. The spasms come and go as they wish, and she has no control over them. We asked her where she was going and she said she was walking to Old Airport to buy a button and new pair of slippers. TW and I immediately voiced out our worries, it's so dangerous for her to be out alone and what if the spasms happened when she was crossing the road? Furthermore, the path to the market is not short, and she still needs to cross a road where there is no traffic light. We offered to walk back to buy the stuff she needs for her, but she refused. Then she revealed her story. She had actually 'ran out' of house while her daughter-in-law was not at home, to take a breather, and would like very much to walk to the market and buy those things herself. Ever since the spasms got worse, she has not gone out and not spoken to anyone, because her daughter-in-law doesn't speak to her at home. Then at that moment, she almost broke out into tears as she thanked God for letting her speak to someone today, because speaking to someone actually means that she would have to exercise her vision/hearing/thought processing, and she's actually gaining a lot by speaking to us. We were touched by her gratefulness, and stood there listening to her under the void deck, for about 2 hours... She said that earlier on, someone at a nearby coffee shop said that her spasms are faked, and she felt so insulted and upset, because she truly had no control over the spasms and it hurts her deeply that people despise her because of that. She admitted that she scolded that person for she was wronged, and she has dignity. And once, she spasm-ed and fell onto a grass patch and couldn't get up. She used to have, but now have lost most of her possessions in life. She was married to a man who got rich and then divorced her to be with another woman. She used to be a dancer (even showed us a photo of her holding onto trophies)but now have to deal with the spasms. It pains us to hear of her degeneration... But despite that, she kept repeating that she is grateful enough that she is able to have 3 meals a day and thanks God for that. We tried to persuade her to go home and not to go to the market anymore, but when we walked away towards TW's house, we peeped back and saw that she was already making her way to the market. We spied on her until she reached a place where there are more people, so if the spasms decide to start again, somebody would be in close proximity. Sigh, it's really disheartening to hear old people having to suffer such things when they should be at home, surrounded by grandkids and family, enjoying their love and care. But a large proportion of elderly in Singapore do not get to have that luxury. Or even when they have the opportunity to be taken care of at home, they might not be treated with the amount of respect that they deserve. They are old, but they are not without feelings and dignity. They are humans too. It's not a good feeling to be forgotten and treated without respect. I would like to urge the younger generation to not have gerontophobia - fear of old people, and start by talking/listening to your own grandparents more. Show them that you love them and you'll only stand to gain from their life experiences. In her eyes, we saw humility, gratefulness, and a dignity to live life, whatever it throws her. We took away her entire 77 years of life experience with us, and walked away with more life lessons that we can ever have with our 22 years of life. And 2 hours was not all that long to spare. Will you send your parents away to nursing homes in JB?Wednesday, July 20, 2011In the article, he describes how an average Singaporean family is taking up the undesired option of sending their aged father to a nursing home in Johor Bahru due to sky-high costs required by nursing homes in Singapore. Ageing is a natural process of degeneration and it is unavoidable that illnesses such as Alzheimer's and dementia follow. These are special needs that must be taken care of. Elderly are also prone to falls as their muscles grow weaker, and their falls are more likely to cause injury as their bones are also more brittle. As such, most elderly require constant attention and care for their daily well-being, much like a toddler, who is unable to fend for himself. More fortunate families that are able to afford a house nurse get the best out of both worlds of having the elderly cared for while remaining at home, however, the costs of hiring a private nurse makes it only available to those very well-off. To the average Singaporean family, such an option is not sustainable nor viable at all. The next choice would be to hire a domestic helper. These domestic helpers who usually hail from Philippines and Indonesia, provide a good degree of care, but are not medically certified nurses, nor have they undergone training programmes to facilitate their role in taking care of an elderly person. A few are not able to deal with the constant pressure of being responsible for the needs of an elderly person and resort to elder abuse. Sometimes, victims of elder abuse are unable to voice their grievances out as they do not have the mental capacities or physical abilities to do so anymore.  Even nursing homes are not spared the ugly act of abuse. The recent incident at Nightingale Nursing Home spilled light over elder abuse by certified caretakers on a helpless, defenseless woman, who was left naked under a ceiling fan, and later swung onto her bed. She was also slapped by a nurse when she groaned in pain. Such treatment is simply an outrage to the elder's dignity. (Photo obtained from news.xin.msn.com) Who is to say that the nursing homes in Johor Bahru willbe free of such scary scandals? It is indeed a frightening thought that your kin is across the causeway in another land, and you have to travel for hours to visit them. Even more frightening is the thought of dying in a foreign land after having slogged out much of their lives in Singapore. After reading the comments, I discovered that there are really some families who have sent their elderly parents to nursing homes in JB, not because they are unfilial, but because they do not have the financial means to pay $2000-$5000 a month, depending on their illnesses, to homes in Singapore. This is hardly surprising as rising costs of living has caused many families struggling to make ends meet, much less able to pay for exorbitant nursing home bills. Expensive healthcare makes growing old in Singapore indeed a daunting task. No wonder there is a saying here, "You can afford to die, but you cannot afford to fall sick." Yes, sending our elderly away to foreign lands may be a scary thought, but if the healthcare/ elder care in Singapore does not improve, it may soon be the next most logical and heartbreaking thing to do. You may read the full article I mentioned here.
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