The Elderly Civil Rights Movement
A call for freedom for our elderly parents and grandparents
By Terry Lynch

Do not think for a minute that being in a nursing home is a good place to be. Quite frankly nursing homes are merely a place that society has created to warehouse the elderly, having failed miserably to deal with the myriad of problems created by getting older.

Certainly it represents a challenge and a steep learning curve for families to learn how to care for and provide a quality life style for their elderly members. But putting them in a nursing home is not necessarily the best solution. A better solution is in home care fully funded through benefit programs and fully supported by established legal institutions.

My own experience involving my mother in a nursing home in Montgomery, Alabama, has not been a good one. For over a month she has been in pain. No one has done anything about this. I was not even consulted in regards to this matter! This represents an utter failure of caring for our elderly in a nursing home.

I have also had occasion to observe a number of events which make me conclude that nursing homes are not good places to be. The nursing home where my mother is staying is an old, concrete block structure which should have been torn down to the ground and demolished years ago! It should have been turned to dust and a new, modern facility built. But the operation is a for-profit business, and apparently whoever owns this establishment is taking the profits and investing them elsewhere, not in upgrading to a more modern facility.

The noise in this nursing home is terrible. Alarms are always going off at odd hours. This is the norm for this establishment and when you mention the noise the staff just replies, "Oh you will get use to it!" The point is, this constant noise is not something anyone should have to get use to, especially not our elder parents who are ill and/or need special daily care.

Also there seems to be a problem managing patients. A number of time patients who were uncomfortable exhibited behavior trying to express their need for assistance. They could not press the buttons which were hanging too far from their beds, they could only lay their hoping someone would come soon to adjust their position or provide other aid ... but time would pass and no one would help. My mother (or myself) often would have to be the one to try to get an attendants attention. My mother has always been this way, a loving, caring person. But when she is a patient in a nursing home along with many people who are in worse condition mentally and physically than she is, it is not her responsibility to attend to fellow patients. This represents an under staffing and an failure in operation procedure. God only knows what happens when a patient has a critical need and attendants never respond ... until perhaps it is too late and they suffer a worse injury or die.

Then there is the problem of wondering patients. On a number of occasions staff has lost a patient. Patients wonder into the rooms of other patients, often causing interruptions or disturbances. Often there are elderly who cannot speak or communicate properly. When one of these rolling coffins wonders into a room, closes the door and begins mischievous behavior, attendants often do not even know they are lost for many minutes, long enough so they can hurt or harm themselves or others. This represents another failure of this particular nursing home which is certainly understaffed and/or mismanaged.

More serious issues involve how this particular nursing home managed to get control of my mother. She signed a health care directive which stated she did not wish to remain in this facility. When I attempted to have her transferred to a better facility they asked a judge to intervene. Then I lost the Durable Power of Attorney I had been assigned for life so there was no way I could demand that the nursing home follow my mother's health care directives. Also this enabled the nursing home, a for-profit business, to take action involving court appointed lawyers, to gain control of all my mother's income and assets. This represents raiding the estates of the elderly, a serious form of exploitation of the elderly.

Of course this was all done perfectly legally. The point is that it should not be legal for the court to determine who should be one's guardian/conservator. Each and every individual should have this power. When this power is given to a judge it breeds corruption and enables for-profit nursing homes to exploit the elderly, just as has happened with my mother!

What is especially terrible about this corrupt system of elderly care is that the heart factor has been removed. When you remove loving and caring family members from the equation, you take away the heart factor, the love factor, and end up with a care system that is based upon hard, cold and often cruel legal dogma! This is no way to be treating our elderly.

In my mother's case the nursing home, through its asking the Court to become involved, has become a non-neutral party, even though they claimed otherwise. However, when someone asks to be moved to a better and competitive facility there is no reason to ask the Court to decide this. The fact is, all nursing homes are not equal; some are better than others. After researching and visiting other nursing homes I decided to have my mother transferred to a better facility, one where she could be under the care of a geriatrics specialist and have access to one of the best physical therapy units in the area. Had this been done and my mother also have been followed by a private, internal medicine expert, I do not belive that a year later down the road she would be in pain and suffering!

There is no reason our elderly parents should be locked away in nursing homes and made to experience pain and suffering. It is pain and suffering to be in a loud, noisy environment. It is pain and suffering to be in a room that never has the lights turned out and does not allow a peaceful, uninterrupted night's sleep. It is pain and suffering to not have attendants present when needed and to be among patients who are disorderly and not properly attended to 24/7. It is pain and suffering to not receive the best medical care money can buy ... and in my mother's case she has very good benefits and should be able to be in the best care facility these will permit. It is pain and suffering to go weeks with bleeding stomach ulcers, craps and internal pain that is permitted because no one cares enough to solve the problem. It is pain and suffering to put a family member in a nursing home, to separate them from their loved ones, to isolate them from society, to take away their rights, to deny them their declared health care directives, and then to act like this is proper!

My mother has been made to experience pain and suffering, something which should never have happened to her. She is a loving and caring person. Her rights have been abused by the elderly care system in Alabama. She is being exploited. A great injustice has been done. This injustice is now causing pain and suffering!

This is a situation which is magnified by hundreds of elderly who are being institutionalized and warehoused in Alabama. They are essentially being locked away, segregated from society. And because they are old people, have health care issues, can often not provide for themselves, are in need of assistance and often cannot speak for themselves or make judgments, they cannot stand up and fight for their own rights! The Courts, basically, absolve themselves of the issue, wash their hands and turn the matter over to ad litem appointed attorneys which simply pay themselves a hefty fee, turn the key and keep the elderly behind closed doors where no one can see them, where they are out of society, apart from their loved ones and family members, and are sentenced to spend the rest of their lives isolated, imprisoned in tiny, noisy rooms, doorways guarded and electronically locked for their own protection, of course, but locked away nonetheless!

This is how we take care of our elderly in Alabama. I don't know how other states do it, but in Alabama we do it right ... we lock the doors and throw away the keys! It does not matter if there are loving, caring family members who try to do their best to care for their parents or grandparents, the system is still geared to segregating the elderly behind locked doors! This is worse than telling blacks to sit at the back of the bus! Basically we are telling our elderly to get off the bus, that they cannot even ride the bus. We are taking them out of society, out of their homes and locking them up and throwing away the key!

Alabama is known for its prejudice and this prejudice extends to the elderly! A new Civil Rights Movement is needed to restore the rights of the elderly! We need a law on the books that allows every person to specify and designate who will be their guardian/conservator. And this law needs to be retroactive such that it applies to anyone who signed a health care directive or Durable Power of Attorney that was in force at the time they were institutionalized and later voided or nullified by the Courts and ad litem appointed attorneys! In my mother's case, which is a prime example of a failed elderly care system, she has been made to experience pain and suffering by a failed elderly care system. Everyone involved in the warehousing of my mother is responsible for this pain and suffering and should be made to pay damages. I'm not exactly sure how to go about doing this, given I am not an attorney and this is a complex legal issue, but certainly there is a solution to this problem which effects hundreds, perhaps thousands of elderly in Alabama. On a national level the numbers are probably staggering!

Although I may not be able to demand that my mother be transferred to a better nursing home or assisted living facility, I can describe her situation and hope others will take note and realize that an injustice has been done. There is no reason my mother should be made to experience pain and suffering by being where she is. My mother's health care directives should be followed to the letter and the Durable Power of Attorney she signed appointing me as her attorney in fact for life should be restored and enforced. Then a loving, caring family member would have and retain the power to make decisions which include, not exclude, the heart factor, the love factor, the one primary factor that no judge, lawyer or non-family member care provider can bring to the equation.

When we take the heart factor out of the equation, out of the elderly care system, then it becomes a sterile, Nazi, fascist system, one ruled by prejudice. This is exactly what has happened in Alabama with the elderly care system. That this can happen in America while we are fighting a war on terrorism is an insult to everything our parents and grandparents fought for to preserve in great wars. How can we treat our elderly without love in such a manner? How can we say that we are a free nation when we warehouse our elderly in such a manner? How can we take our elderly who sacrificed so much to make our nation free from fascism, from communism, and then lock them away and throw away the key! This is utter irresponsible conduct. But because it results in my mother experiencing pain and suffering it also is cruel and inhumane treatment of our elderly.

It is hypocritical for our courts and legal system to be operating in such a way that the elderly are warehoused when they have endeavored to provide for their own health, care and welfare by designating their own guardian/conservator; that the Court would over rule such designations when there are loving, caring family members who have expressed a wiliness and desire to be involved in the health, care and welfare of their parents and grandparents. Certainly in cases where there are no family members to be involved it may be necessary to delegate this responsibility to other care providers, but when loving, caring and willing family members are present it is an injustice for the courts to not follow the directives of an elderly person. Thus in my mother's case a great injustice has been done, as there certainly were expressed health care directives and a Durable Power of Attorney in effect which gave me the power to help direct my mother's affairs and insure that she would never be exploited by the system, never be hurt or harmed by the system, never be permanently warehoused or have to endure pain and suffering to any degree whatsoever!

Thus I conclude that the elderly care system in Alabama is broken. The courts and lawyers who are involved in this process are often corrupt and serve for-profit interests which are under funded and sustained by a process which involves taking power and control of the income and/or property of our elderly to use for their own benefit. For-profit businesses do not exist as charities, but to make money! Even though they may be regulated and have to meet standards, they operate to make money. This means from the outset that they have as a priority making a profit and it is this factor which lends them to corruption. In my mother's case this fact has been born out by a suit filed against me, supposedly in my mother's name, to gain control of the home she gave to me over a year before she had her stroke and went into a nursing home as a temporary patient.

Now my mother has been made a permanent patient of this nursing home. She has been made a ward of the State of Alabama, a state known worldwide for its prejudice and inhumane treatment of prisoners. Lawyers have been appointed as her guardian/conservator. Yet these lawyers do not love my mother. They do not know her. They are strangers. They do not really care if she is experiencing pain and suffering. They only care about facts, figures and how much money they can put in their own pockets. When multiplied by the representation of many elderly, this amount of money becomes a staggering sum! It is big business managing the affairs of the elderly and taking power and control away from them and their family members. It is the fight over the power and control of the money involved that corrupts the system, one which is under funded and needs this money to survive.

Every health care worker, every staff member, every attorney or agent who represents a for-profit nursing home is exposed to this corruption, as they need the money to pay for their services. Thus the elderly become victims of an exploitative care system. This is not merely my opinion, it is a fact, a truth! These for-profit businesses like the one where my mother is at, are based upon the exploitation of the elderly ... and we call them nursing homes. They are really warehouses for the elderly!

Indeed, it is time that a civil rights movement begin to restore the rights of our elderly who are being warehoused! I therefore urge all priests and ministers, all doctors and lawyers, all politicians and representatives to join me in an Elderly Civil Rights Movement! Lets rise up together and change the antiquated laws of our state and nation which allow the warehousing of our elderly. Lets change the laws that every citizen may appoint their own guardian/conservator and thereby take away power and control from a corrupt systems and give it back to the people. Lets endeavor to end the pain and suffering our elderly parents and grandparents are experiencing by being separated from family members, and develop a system based upon in home care and assisted living that is of the highest quality money can buy, not designed like a prison but like a home! Lets do this together, everyone in support of their parents and grandparents, rather than divided, fighting over money, property, estates and material possessions!

Our parents and grandparents deserve the best, certainly. When we were young and in their care, they gave us love and endeavored to raise us to be responsible citizens. Now it is time we do the same for them, that we act together to insure their health, care and rights, through an Elderly Civil Rights Movement. This movement should have as a goal legislation designed to permit all citizens to designate their own guardian/conservator and a constitutional amendment to that effect that no state may take away the rights of a citizen to manage and control their own affairs due to age, incapacity or incompetence; that each person retain the power to appoint an attorney in fact for life through a Durable Power of Attorney that cannot be nullified by corrupt court appointed attorneys; that each individual retain the power to make their own health care directive when of able body and mind; that these directives be followed at such later time when one grows old, such that the individual and specific wishes and desires of each person must be followed, rather than treating the elderly like cattle, warehousing them and treating them all according to some ethereal methodology that has no relation to what each person says they want.

My mother use to say that there is another Golden Rule, one which says, "Do unto me as I wish to be done unto, not as you would like to be done unto!" This means that each person may have different desires and wishes; what you wish for yourself is not necessarily what someone else wishes for themselves. In my mother's case she does not wish to live and die in a nursing home. She does not wish to be separated from family members by walls and electronic key coded doors and guards who patrol 24/7. She wished that specific health care directives be followed and that a family member be her attorney in fact. The moment the Probate Court of Montgomery County ruled otherwise, her rights were violated!

Therefore I call upon all concerned citizens to act now. Lets begin an Elderly Civil Rights Movement and do all those things which must be done to insure that this happens to no one else! Lets come together and rise up and demand that we all may appoint and designate our own guardian/conservator. Lets demand that this be made law, not just in Alabama, but nationwide! Only by doing this will our rights be protected when we, ourselves, grow old and join the elderly population!