Sunday, September 26, 1999
Listen carefully to our frail elders
Society's concern can seem cruel
BY KAREN SAMPLES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS — Alma lives at a nursing home here, among people who appear far sicker than she. Some stare dully at nothing. Others cannot speak except in lonely wails — the vocabulary of the old and dying.
Alma is in her 80s. To brighten her tiny room, she makes bow ties from aluminum foil and cuts out magazine pictures of dogs.
Still, the place looks like an institution. No amount of decoration can soften the concrete walls.
Alma says she hates to be around so much pain and sadness. She wants to go back to her home in Bellevue.
City officials are adamantly opposed.
Their concerns and her unhappiness are two sides of growing old alone. Every year, thousands of elderly people be come unable to care for themselves but unwilling to give up their independence. If they do not have children or other close relatives, government officials sometimes step in.
This has been Alma's fate. Her home, filled with animal feces and trash, was condemned in 1996. She was forcibly removed and placed in a hospital, city records show.
Such actions are well-intended and often necessary. But to the elderly person involved, they can look more like cruelty.
Alma's case illustrates how important it is for each of us to plan ahead for our old age, and for neighbors and relatives to reach out whenever possible.
Last year, I wrote about Jack Berg, an elderly Newport man whose home was condemned under similar circumstances. He died shortly after, and I questioned the government's hands-off approach.
Newport officials told me they couldn't enter Mr. Berg's home without permission, so he continued living there despite the terrible stench and filth. When he finally was discovered moaning on the floor, officials couldn't believe the accumulation of dead pets, feces and trash.
Lawyer hired
Alma's story is different. The mayor of Bellevue personally takes complaints about deteriorating property and makes sure something gets done. Bellevue officials were so persistent that Alma agreed to let them in.
Between 1995 and 1996, she had received at least six letters ordering her to clean up the overgrown weeds and trash in her yard, the city's files show. In addition, then-building inspector Don Martin made 10 contacts with people at social-service agencies, either updating them on Alma's situation or requesting help.
Even after Mr. Martin finally inspected the inside, he told Alma she could remain in the home if she cleaned it. No progress was made, and during another visit on Jan. 11, 1996, officials became seriously concerned about the elderly woman's health.
Splitting skin around her ankles was covered with “paper towels and Scotch tape,” one official wrote. She was disoriented and unable to stand without leaning against a sofa.
This inspection led to her removal. She was placed in a hospital, then the nursing home. For a few years, a distant relative took care of her affairs.
Eventually, Alma ended up with a state guardian. This year, she hired a lawyer to contest aspects of that guardianship, including her confinement to the nursing home, she says.
At a hearing on Friday, Campbell County District Judge Mickey Foellger said the state's files on the guardianship were confidential and officials could not comment on it. For that reason, the outcome of the hearing could not be determined.
I visited Alma earlier this week. She misses Bellevue and worries about her savings. The nursing home costs her $3,500 a month, she says.
Alma's husband died in 1985, and she has no living children.
"That gets monotonous'
She acknowledges that her two-story house needed work. At one point, the roof was leaking and she paid a man to begin fixing it. He tore off the roof and never returned, which led to water damage throughout, she says.
People from social-service agencies came by to offer repairs, but she refused.
“I wasn't the kind that wanted help like that,” she says. “I didn't like people butting into everything I did.”
She took in a cat that nobody wanted, and it had kittens. She also fell and became more frail. That's when the house started to get “a little bit dirty,” she says.
Alma also struggled with mysterious blisters all over her legs. The oozing was so bad that she tried to sleep in chairs or on the toilet to avoid ruining her mattress, she says.
Now her health has greatly improved. The sores are gone. She manages to get around.
The employees at the nursing home are nice, but life is bleak, she says.
“I just think, think, think, think, think. That gets monotonous, you know? I think and I pray. I pray that everyone in this place gets well.”
More than anything, Alma laments the way she was removed from her home. At that time, she was not given a chance to get her purse or other personal items, and eventually, all of her furniture and other belongings were sold at auction, she says.
It could be us
She thinks the people in her life are waiting for her to die.
“I'd like to let the world know that I'm still at it,” she says.
Within the limits of their health, the elderly deserve as much freedom as possible. For Alma, this should mean a transfer from the nursing home to another setting — one less like a hospital.
We ought to listen carefully to people like her, even if we can't grant their every wish. Someday, any one of us could feel just as alone.
Karen Samples is Kentucky columnist for the Enquirer. Her column appears Thursdays and Sundays. She can be reached at 578-5584, or by e-mail at ksamples@enquirer.com.
SAMPLES ARCHIVE
