My mother had to have an operation to remove a goitre, which had compromised a carotid artery.

She apparently died on the operating table and was able to describe the activities of the staff including the quick surgical response, which included cutting her open with a miniature circular saw and physically massaging her heart.

Now some of what she witnessed and described in great detail, could be explained by her overhearing some of the conversations at a subconscious level and simply filling in the gaps from a very fertile imagination?

Just not all of it, including the otherwise invisible bald spot on top of the senior surgeon's head.

And if you have trouble with that then how about the fact that her recognisable spirit appearing to me for a few moments, three days after we buried her, as an image of effulgent light, or like moonlight shining on silver.

Mine and her eyewitness accounts, all of which can be explained away if inconvenient, by hallucinations of one sort or another, and given that is possible.

It behooves those of us with still open minds to include the possibility of the opposite or an actual witnessed events?

Something claimed in a book I read, titled life after life, where claimants recount credible evidence based accounts of remembered past lives, where there memories included recoverable evidence like headline news and stuff only supported by verifiable eyewitness accounts.

All of which seems to endorse a belief that you can't cheat the grim reaper, your predetermined destiny, or just being forced to repeat the lessons needed to expunge the black spots from your soul, as might be if in a past life you were a cruel and vicious nazi guard in some inhuman jewish prison camp or worse, and all you think of as unendurable suffering, just complete justice.

THerefore no to euthanasia and yes to just copping your lumps as they come.
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty , my mum is in an independent unit, not the nursing home. I hope she never goes into the nursing home! She owns the unit, so doesn't have to pay any rent etc, which is what seems to make some pensioners very poor.

Only about 5% of the elderly end up in nursing homes, and yes, the Government much prefers they stay at home as long as possible, so I doubt there is any conspiracy to get all the elderly into nursing homes. If an elderly person living alone falls at home, and doesn't have an alert necklace or bracelet, and lays there for days maybe, the first people the relatives or friends blame are the community nurses, by asking why we hadn't placed them in 'safe' care in a nursing home?

So...damned if we do and damned if we don't. We do the best we can with the limited resources we have.

Hospitals are not nursing homes, and don't care for the elderly as well as nursing homes unless they are in an acute stage of illness. However, there aren't enough nursing home beds available, so the ones who physically can't go home if they live alone must stay in the hospital, sometimes for many months. Not everyone has relatives willing to care for them at their homes.

These days, nursing homes must meet stringent guidelines set down by the health department, and they send auditors to do 'spot checks' at any time, so standards are much improved these days.

Naturally, there will always be problems that occur in all nursing homes, because the small amount of money the Government spends on them leads them to have to use very low paid carers rather than trained nurses. The nurses they do have are overworked, with often one nurse to a hundred residents, but this is slowly changing as residents and their families report homes to the health department.
Hopefully, they will listen.

I was in the system very recently and I was told in no uncertain terms, that I was a nursing home patient.

With one aping a demented patient in my presence as her idea of humor; and off course the staff wouldn't ever do that, or go rummaging through a patient's personal possessions for anything of value, it just doesn't occur. Neither does the fiercely CCTV installations that might just expose some of this behavior?

My father was in relatively good physical health and a tad over 12 stone when he went in, and just over 7 the day he died.

We seem to have people in service, whose attitude seems to be assist them go as quickly as possible without any life prolonging help or possibly appropriate antibiotics?

I was quite vehemently verbally abused for asking for a bottle, and when the inevitable happened and the requested service turned up half an hour later. I was told that was what nappies were for!

A wet roommate who had just had a change, was simply refused a service on the grounds he'd just had one. Would that it's an isolated example. Patients have no control over staff numbers or the routine workload!

Where did you leave the guide dog or your white cane, or do you have sergeant schultz syndrome?

There may well not be a conspiracy, and I don't see how you connected the dots to make seem to say that, but my personal experience at the hands of queensland health would support my claim.

Funding is a top priority it would seem, and one is limited to 35 days of care to recover from a stroke, ready or not.

After that you can be declared a nursing home patient; given that's where the only public funding is!

Hardly the point, when abuse or neglect shouldn't ever happen and still does, because of the apologists inside the tent 24/7?

Who from where I stand should be the ones exposing inexcusable behavior rather than occasionally visiting family!

Rhrosty,

Google 'patient advocates'. I don't know anything about the services. Interested in what you make of them.

Good evening to you RHROSTY...

Just before I retired I was tasked with a Coroner's job concerning a death at a well known Retirement conglomerate in the western suburbs of Sydney. Your statement where you assert inter alia '...we seem to have people in service who's attitude it is, to assist them to go as quickly as possible without any life prolonging help or possibly appropriate antibotics...', resonated with me?

There were certain inexplicable parallels with the matter we were examining, in fact your observations appeared to be almost analogous with some of the facts we'd deduced, and were subsequently contained in our brief?

It should be stressed herein, DPP declined to run with our matter, which was the correct course of action in my view, and I was the case officer. Furthermore as a result of our involvement a number of staff were summarily dismissed, including the Director or Nursing.

An aside - those employed as nursing aides, many from S.E. Asia, specifically the Philippines, proved to be exemplary in the discharge of their duties, and were profoundly caring whenever they interacted with their elderly patients, notwithstanding some patients proved difficult and contrary whenever they're asked to comply with their treatment protocols. I formed this view as a result of my observations, pursuant to their daily activities. And was subsequently included in the Brief I prepared for the Coroner.

Yes Rhrosty, I agree with Onthebeach.
If you are treated badly in any health facility you should report it to the relevant authorities.

Despite a poor opinion of medical staff resonating from both you and Onthebeach, I have had the the pleasure of working with many very good, caring nurses over the years. I have also worked with very bad nurses, and have reported them and had them dismissed myself.

No one wants to go to a nursing home, but I work as a community nurse and thus it is in my best interests to keep clients at home as long as possible. No one denies the elderly antibiotics that I have seen...IF they want active treatment for themselves....IF they want to continue living a poor excuse for a life. Many don't want to, believe me.

Don't worry, I won't correspond with you re this subject anymore, as I can see you very angry about your predicament. You are not alone there...