Many families cannot take care of the elderly who are no longer self-sufficient. For this reason they very often decide to entrust them to a retirement home
Last update: July 06, 2022
Every time I go to a nursing home, I am filled with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I feel immense joy in knowing that there are these fantastic centers where there are people who look after our older loved ones. They give them all possible attention and their work is admirable. But I also feel a lot of sadness. I did my internship in a retirement home and some of the employees told me that some elderly people had not received visitors for months.
I go to visit my uncle very often who is in a retirement home. He is well looked after, they help him wash and feed. He is not very old, but unfortunately he is no longer able to look after himself. He has no wife or children, so putting him in a retirement home seemed like the best decision. He is fine, he is happy. He is just a little fatter. They say he behaves well. I like to visit him and offer him a coffee. He is happy with it and always greets me with a “what's up champion?”, Although most of the time he confuses me with my brother.
The rest homes and the sad corridor
To get to my uncle's room, I have to go through half a building. I take the elevator, arrive at the floor, between the elevator and his room there is a corridor where there are always many elderly people in wheelchairs. They can barely move. When I pass them, I greet them with a smile. Some look at me and smile back, others just look at me without reciprocating and still others simply don't even notice my presence. I always see the same people sitting there, alone.
Some are always silent and with their heads down, I always wonder what they are thinking. What have their lives been like? Above all I wonder if they had ever imagined finding themselves in a wheelchair, motionless and with a lost look, worn out by life, by loneliness, by illness, or by all these things together.
During my internship I met a gentleman who shared a room with a woman who did nothing but laugh and shout. It was a gentleman who was initially very violent. He was suffering from Alzheimer's at such an advanced stage that he could hardly speak.
One day I proposed to interact with him. I sat down next to him and started asking him about his life. He almost always spoke in monosyllables. He managed to get me to tell his country of birth, which I did not even know on purpose. Gradually, she managed to get a few more words out of him. Even one day, despite the stroke he had, he smiled at me.
They are just looking for a little affection
One day she heard him scream. I walked over to the room he was in and there I found two helpers trying to lift him up to wash him, but he was just struggling. I entered the room as soon as he saw me dropped into his chair quietly. I had discovered the secret. I had the answer right in front of my eyes. Behind that expressionless gaze hid a man who was only looking for a little affection.
For these people, receiving affection and companionship is so important that Gea Sijpkes, director of the Humanitas retirement home in the Netherlands, has started a project. In 2012 she decided to offer free accommodation to students within the facility as long as they spent at least thirty hours a month with the elderly who lived there.
"The pain and handicaps that arise with advancing age cannot be avoided, but something can be done to improve people's lives."
-Gea Sijpkes, director of the Humanitas retirement home
Souls looking for a connection in a retirement home
Both in the nursing home where I did the internship and in the one where my uncle is, I was able to observe that in many of our elders there is a shadow of loneliness. The professionals who work in these centers are overwhelmed with work and do not have time to "be company" with the elderly they care for. However, it saddens me a lot to know that some of them receive very few or no visits. In each of them there is a soul that wants nothing more than to connect with others. Loneliness consumes them little by little.
Today's society teaches us that only functional things are worth preserving, everything from which we can derive some benefit. I regret to see that many families entrust the elderly to retirement homes and abandon them there, visiting them very rarely. Our elders have a life, they have a story, they sacrificed part of their life for us and we abandon them.
There is no doubt that nursing homes are a great alternative in many cases and that thanks to them many of our older loved ones can enjoy a lot of attention. This article is only intended to open your eyes to the loneliness and abandonment to which many of our loved ones are subjected. They are left in the oblivion of these centers as if they were a burden.
The great work of retirement homes
Many families, a due to work, financial or time issues, they cannot take charge of the proper care of older relatives when they are no longer self-sufficient. For this reason they very often decide to entrust them to retirement homes. But as soon as they can they go to see them to give them comfort and company.
In such situations, although uprooted from their homes, the elderly do not experience a feeling of abandonment. The retirement home is transformed into their new home in which they live with other elderly people e their family members often visit him.
We must not forget the great work done by the operators of these centers, but we must also not forget the loved ones who live there. In the past they have given everything for us and what we are and have we owe thanks to them, their work and the education they have given us.
Being by their side when they need us and giving them the same time they have dedicated to us, making them feel that they are not alone and that they can always count on us is the least we can do. Why, - and this we should never forget- it is thanks to them that we find ourselves in this world.
