Profit-making institutions have discovered hospice, and they are buying them up as fast as possible.  They move in, start to bribe nursing home managers and physicians, bloat their patient population and cut services in order to make money under Medicare and Medicaid.  The first prosecutions have already occurred, recovering about 10% of what is pilfered, stolen, misappropriated and cheated in an attempt to make huge profits.

What is tragic is what happens to the patient population, and their families.  Let me describe one area where a profit-making institution will not be able to provide the patient care necessary.

Where I volunteer there are about 36 hours of volunteer time each day spread over an average of 10 patients.  That time is spent directly with patients, feeding them sitting with them, turning them, changing diapers, changing beds, walking with them, pushing them in wheelchairs, helping them get to commodes or bathrooms, and more.  Time is spent with friends and families, talking with them, feeding them (a lot of patients don’t eat their meals and that will get thrown out if not consumed, getting ice cream for adults and kids, helping them come to terms with the situation, getting them cots and linens to spend the night in the patient’s room, or in the big living room we have with overstuffed sofas.

And there’s more we do.  We pick up trays and dishes and wash them and restock them.  We stock linens, and sponges-on-a-stick and straws, and soap and help clean the deceased and so on.  And then there’s a personal element.

Three nights ago I stopped in a room.  A father was sitting in a chair, 45 to 50 y/o dressed in working clothes son leaning over mother.  I asked if there were anything I could do.  The mother, the patient, said “Yes!  You could tell some people to shut up once in a while.  Christ, they WILL NOT listen!”  The son stood up, moved across the room, tears in his eyes.

I told her that some parents were so important that children wanted to make sure they were heard, that it is easy to be afraid that a very important person won’t hear and they carry it a bit far.  It is a nuisance, sometimes, I added, and it’s not exactly rude, it’s simply a way of showing how important a person is to them.

She grumbled, I left, and the son followed me out and thanked me.  Profusely.

The point I’m trying to make is that facilities such as this can be too professional, too sanitary, too filled with staff who look at the patient as a problem standing between them and home because they don’t have time to do a good job professionally and take the time with the patient which they’d like.

Volunteers make the environment less professional.  We have the time to play with children, we can let people stay in the rooms, we can talk to family and friends, we’re what allows staff to take some time.

In a profit-making organization that will not happen.  There will be no volunteers, I don’t know anyone who would do it, and each patient will be like a chicken laying eggs until they are slaughtered.  The things like dishes we do, stocking, will be done by paid personnel, and the rest not done.   Impersonal, devoid of emotion or compassion, families herded in an out at special times, as they tend to get in the way.

The profit-making folks figuring another way to chisel Medicare are beneath contempt, as are those who promote such practices.  People should be allowed to die in relative comfort and free from misery and concerns, not treated as cattle with a dollar sign attached to their bodies.

Arf