Conghaileach
11th December 2002, 23:24
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 12, 2002
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
BUSH WANTS MY MOM TO PAY FOR HIS WAR
By Bev Hiestand
As a political activist and health-care worker, I am aware of the
rapid
decline in health-care delivery in this country. But it became much
more
personal in recent days as I was forced by circumstances to place my
84-
year-old mom--a health-care worker her whole life, too--in an Adult
Assisted Living facility.
It certainly felt like cruelty to another human being as I ripped my
mother away from all those things that were her life and placed her in
an institution in another city, 45 minutes from the countryside she
loves so much, her friends and her family.
And why? Because we were told by that she could not stay in the
hospital
another day and the administrators could not find a place for her
closer
to home.
My mom is an elder who has only a Social Security check and small
pension to live on. Based on rules established by Medicaid and
followed
by the commercial insurance companies, she could not be covered for
her
three-day hospitalization without personally shelling out as much as
$2,000 a day.
The doctor had determined that her unbearable pain might be due to a
spinal compression fracture resulting from a fall. This injury and
pain
is even more of a care crisis because she is unable to walk well or
care
for herself. She is nearly blind, has difficulty hearing and has many
physical problems requiring medications and medical care.
Yet she did not meet the criteria to keep her in the hospital long
enough for an appropriate place near her home and loved ones to be
found.
After 12 hours of worry, anger and frustration dealing with this
inhumane system at the hospital, my mother was forced to leave. It
wasn't the fault of the health-care workers; they were all wonderful
and
caring. Their facial expressions were pained as they said to us:
"Isn't
this awful? What's happened to our health-care system in this county
is
a crime!"
They noted that this happens every day. In fact, the elderly woman
sharing the hospital room with my mom was going through the same
thing.
She ended up in a town 45 minutes away from her home. Her daughter
hopes
she will be able to find a place for her closer to home in the not-
too-
distant future.
COLD, FRIGHTENED AND ISOLATED
So at 7 p.m. my mom and I arrived at the new facility. We found
ourselves sitting in a big, almost-empty room with one insufficient
ceiling light, a lone bed and a dresser. The walls were totally bare
and
no one had had time to turn up the heat before she arrived. So it was
cold.
She was devastated. I was too.
There was no phone in her room because we had no time to prepare. She
was cut off from her family and all the people who were part of her
life.
She was very frightened, afraid she would not have the assistance she
needed for the most basic activities of daily life.
Just before I left for the evening, an African American patient-care
aide stuck her head in the door and told Mom: "Don't be scared. I will
be here all night and I am going to look in on you every two hours to
make sure you are okay. I will wake you in the morning in time for
breakfast and we will see that you get down there in your wheelchair."
She was very sweet to be so comforting to my mother--I know how
overworked she is. I thought about how in spite of the endless
oppression from racism and exploitation that people must face daily in
this system they manage to resist the coldness that characterizes
their
oppressors.
I've lost a lot of work hours at the hospital where I am employed
because I've been dealing with my mom's health crisis. As I now face
the
need to travel long distances several times a week after work to be
with
my mother and help her to deal with the many aspects of life that are
a
challenge for her, I wonder about all those who do not have cars or
the
means to travel these distances.
It reminds me of all the prisoners who have been incarcerated far away
from their families. I can't help feeling angry that my mother and so
many other elderly people are being housed in institutions in
isolation,
unable to make the contributions to this society that their
experience,
wisdom and spirit could offer.
CAPITALISM: WAR ABROAD, WAR AT HOME
Why is there such a shortage of hospital beds for the elderly? During
the last decade tens of thousands of hospital beds have been closed
down
as corporate health-care organizations and their political allies have
determined that these beds are not profitable.
This has moved what used to be hospital care into people's homes,
mainly
performed by already overworked family members, some of them elders
themselves.
While it is true that some of the care that used to be provided in
hospitals could be provided in other settings, the fact is that there
is
a shortage of appropriate facilities. Too many people are being forced
out of the hospital into situations that compromise not only the
patients' safety and well-being but their families'.
Through our unions and progressive political movements we need to
demand
that there be no more closings of hospitals and layoffs of health-care
workers. Open up more beds as a transition for those who are waiting
to
go into facilities near their homes. Allow all those who find home
care
too demanding to return to the hospital and get the care they deserve.
We have been told this is too expensive, that society cannot afford
it.
However, the Bush administration, answering to Big Oil and other
capitalist conglomerates, is rushing into a war against the Iraqi
people
that, according to Wall Street Journal estimates, may cost at least
$200
billion. This does not include the cost of a prolonged military
occupation that one economist estimates could run as high as $1.9
trillion.
Who will pay for this war? Bush wants my mother, our families, co-
workers and neighbors to pay. Most state budgets are already running
on
a deficit leading to cutbacks in not only health care but funding for
schools, housing, drug rehabilitation and many other critical
programs.
Meanwhile, this surplus wealth we all created is funneled to the
Pentagon and Wall Street.
Bush wants Iraqi families, workers and neighbors to pay, too. What
must
it be like for a daughter in Iraq to try to find care for an elderly
mother when the entire infrastructure of the country has already been
badly damaged by the previous war, the economy strangled by U.S.-led
economic sanctions and the country facing a deadly rain of bombs in a
full-scale Pentagon war? The U.S. capitalist class wants the Iraqi
people to pay with their oil and the profits from conquest of the
Middle
East.
And what will happen when many of the hundreds of thousands of
soldiers
who do return from war come back disabled or sick? One in every four
soldiers in the first Gulf War reportedly has long-term and sometimes
life-threatening illnesses. This will be even more strain on a health-
care system that is already buckling under the weight of the burden of
ever more profits.
That's why, even though I'm stretched for time traveling to help care
for my mother and scrambling at my own hospital to hold on to my job,
I'm working overtime trying to organize a regional upstate New York
anti-
war network.
But despite my political awareness about this "profit before human
need
society," I find myself at times feeling
responsible for leaving my mom in these awful circumstances.
One of the hardest things about living under capitalism is that it
isn't
the ruling class members themselves who carry out the terrible crimes
against people that this economic system mandates.
Capitalism is an economic machine that conducts its exploitation and
oppression silently and often impersonally. This makes its victims
feel
powerless to stop it, and therefore responsible for the toll that it
takes on them and their loved ones.
Because I cannot protect each person I love from the cruelty of life
under capitalism, I continue to organize to sweep this unjust and
unequal system into the dustbin of history and replace it with a
rational economy based on planned production to meet human needs.
It's a future that I can actually picture and help fashion based on
the
brutal experience of living under capitalism.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and
distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not
allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY,
NY 10011; via e-mail: [email protected] Subscribe wwnews-
[email protected] Unsubscribe [email protected] Support the
voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
Reprinted from the Dec. 12, 2002
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
BUSH WANTS MY MOM TO PAY FOR HIS WAR
By Bev Hiestand
As a political activist and health-care worker, I am aware of the
rapid
decline in health-care delivery in this country. But it became much
more
personal in recent days as I was forced by circumstances to place my
84-
year-old mom--a health-care worker her whole life, too--in an Adult
Assisted Living facility.
It certainly felt like cruelty to another human being as I ripped my
mother away from all those things that were her life and placed her in
an institution in another city, 45 minutes from the countryside she
loves so much, her friends and her family.
And why? Because we were told by that she could not stay in the
hospital
another day and the administrators could not find a place for her
closer
to home.
My mom is an elder who has only a Social Security check and small
pension to live on. Based on rules established by Medicaid and
followed
by the commercial insurance companies, she could not be covered for
her
three-day hospitalization without personally shelling out as much as
$2,000 a day.
The doctor had determined that her unbearable pain might be due to a
spinal compression fracture resulting from a fall. This injury and
pain
is even more of a care crisis because she is unable to walk well or
care
for herself. She is nearly blind, has difficulty hearing and has many
physical problems requiring medications and medical care.
Yet she did not meet the criteria to keep her in the hospital long
enough for an appropriate place near her home and loved ones to be
found.
After 12 hours of worry, anger and frustration dealing with this
inhumane system at the hospital, my mother was forced to leave. It
wasn't the fault of the health-care workers; they were all wonderful
and
caring. Their facial expressions were pained as they said to us:
"Isn't
this awful? What's happened to our health-care system in this county
is
a crime!"
They noted that this happens every day. In fact, the elderly woman
sharing the hospital room with my mom was going through the same
thing.
She ended up in a town 45 minutes away from her home. Her daughter
hopes
she will be able to find a place for her closer to home in the not-
too-
distant future.
COLD, FRIGHTENED AND ISOLATED
So at 7 p.m. my mom and I arrived at the new facility. We found
ourselves sitting in a big, almost-empty room with one insufficient
ceiling light, a lone bed and a dresser. The walls were totally bare
and
no one had had time to turn up the heat before she arrived. So it was
cold.
She was devastated. I was too.
There was no phone in her room because we had no time to prepare. She
was cut off from her family and all the people who were part of her
life.
She was very frightened, afraid she would not have the assistance she
needed for the most basic activities of daily life.
Just before I left for the evening, an African American patient-care
aide stuck her head in the door and told Mom: "Don't be scared. I will
be here all night and I am going to look in on you every two hours to
make sure you are okay. I will wake you in the morning in time for
breakfast and we will see that you get down there in your wheelchair."
She was very sweet to be so comforting to my mother--I know how
overworked she is. I thought about how in spite of the endless
oppression from racism and exploitation that people must face daily in
this system they manage to resist the coldness that characterizes
their
oppressors.
I've lost a lot of work hours at the hospital where I am employed
because I've been dealing with my mom's health crisis. As I now face
the
need to travel long distances several times a week after work to be
with
my mother and help her to deal with the many aspects of life that are
a
challenge for her, I wonder about all those who do not have cars or
the
means to travel these distances.
It reminds me of all the prisoners who have been incarcerated far away
from their families. I can't help feeling angry that my mother and so
many other elderly people are being housed in institutions in
isolation,
unable to make the contributions to this society that their
experience,
wisdom and spirit could offer.
CAPITALISM: WAR ABROAD, WAR AT HOME
Why is there such a shortage of hospital beds for the elderly? During
the last decade tens of thousands of hospital beds have been closed
down
as corporate health-care organizations and their political allies have
determined that these beds are not profitable.
This has moved what used to be hospital care into people's homes,
mainly
performed by already overworked family members, some of them elders
themselves.
While it is true that some of the care that used to be provided in
hospitals could be provided in other settings, the fact is that there
is
a shortage of appropriate facilities. Too many people are being forced
out of the hospital into situations that compromise not only the
patients' safety and well-being but their families'.
Through our unions and progressive political movements we need to
demand
that there be no more closings of hospitals and layoffs of health-care
workers. Open up more beds as a transition for those who are waiting
to
go into facilities near their homes. Allow all those who find home
care
too demanding to return to the hospital and get the care they deserve.
We have been told this is too expensive, that society cannot afford
it.
However, the Bush administration, answering to Big Oil and other
capitalist conglomerates, is rushing into a war against the Iraqi
people
that, according to Wall Street Journal estimates, may cost at least
$200
billion. This does not include the cost of a prolonged military
occupation that one economist estimates could run as high as $1.9
trillion.
Who will pay for this war? Bush wants my mother, our families, co-
workers and neighbors to pay. Most state budgets are already running
on
a deficit leading to cutbacks in not only health care but funding for
schools, housing, drug rehabilitation and many other critical
programs.
Meanwhile, this surplus wealth we all created is funneled to the
Pentagon and Wall Street.
Bush wants Iraqi families, workers and neighbors to pay, too. What
must
it be like for a daughter in Iraq to try to find care for an elderly
mother when the entire infrastructure of the country has already been
badly damaged by the previous war, the economy strangled by U.S.-led
economic sanctions and the country facing a deadly rain of bombs in a
full-scale Pentagon war? The U.S. capitalist class wants the Iraqi
people to pay with their oil and the profits from conquest of the
Middle
East.
And what will happen when many of the hundreds of thousands of
soldiers
who do return from war come back disabled or sick? One in every four
soldiers in the first Gulf War reportedly has long-term and sometimes
life-threatening illnesses. This will be even more strain on a health-
care system that is already buckling under the weight of the burden of
ever more profits.
That's why, even though I'm stretched for time traveling to help care
for my mother and scrambling at my own hospital to hold on to my job,
I'm working overtime trying to organize a regional upstate New York
anti-
war network.
But despite my political awareness about this "profit before human
need
society," I find myself at times feeling
responsible for leaving my mom in these awful circumstances.
One of the hardest things about living under capitalism is that it
isn't
the ruling class members themselves who carry out the terrible crimes
against people that this economic system mandates.
Capitalism is an economic machine that conducts its exploitation and
oppression silently and often impersonally. This makes its victims
feel
powerless to stop it, and therefore responsible for the toll that it
takes on them and their loved ones.
Because I cannot protect each person I love from the cruelty of life
under capitalism, I continue to organize to sweep this unjust and
unequal system into the dustbin of history and replace it with a
rational economy based on planned production to meet human needs.
It's a future that I can actually picture and help fashion based on
the
brutal experience of living under capitalism.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and
distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not
allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY,
NY 10011; via e-mail: [email protected] Subscribe wwnews-
[email protected] Unsubscribe [email protected] Support the
voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)