I thank Maggie Reed for this, it's from a private Facebook caregivers group:
Covid musings. We have been in hell trying to work our way through an irrational, discriminatory, biased and failing health care system. The results for us as seniors have bee
n devastating. The details are exhausting and for you likely irrelevant unless you know us and our situation.
This is my observation, complaint and source for much frustration. Why are the hospitals allowing a caregiver to accompany a child under 16, a spouse giving birth, a trauma patient, but no one is allowed to speak for a disabled, speech and memory impaired senior with extensive health issues?
I have watched in horror, seniors brought in by stretcher only to be parked in a hallway and ignored for hours and hours. No care, no water, no food, no contact. An insulin dependent diabetic, given no food, no medication, no fluids and no personal care for 9 hours. Right in front of the people who are tasked to provide the care, while their health care decision maker is prevented from speaking on their behalf or being with them. Medical power of attorney’s are useless. They are guidelines that can be ignored by the officious nurses and pompous doctors.
We need to take the Covid pandemic seriously. But, during this time we are putting at risk an entire generation of people who we owe our gratitude to. Seniors have become disposable, a burden, a waste of precious resources. Nursing homes are not the only place where this horror is taking place. Hospital are equally as bad.
Seniors are not participating in high risks behaviours, but represent high risk for contracting the virus. A sixteen year old and his twenty something mom come with no guarantees either. Neither does and excited father who just came from drinks with his buddies.
My anger is palpable. We our setting ourselves up for a world of grief. Without care toward the pain, loneliness, grief and discrimination that seniors are facing, we are abandoning our responsibilities, our history, our morality.
When I first saw the algorithms for COVID priorities and realized that disabled people and seniors were expendable, I felt a deep sadness for our society. Are we about to repeat a horrific time in our history?
If there is a lawyer reading this who wants to start a war about discrimination with me. I am all in, and I have the documentation.