Commentary:

Something to think about...

...as the Baby Boomers age:

Woman refuses to leave the hospital
82-year-old was discharged a year ago, officials say

The Associated Press
Updated: 7:10 p.m. ET Feb. 16, 2005

More than a year after Sarah Nome was deemed healthy and given her discharge papers, the 82-year-old woman stubbornly refuses to leave her hospital bed.

But wait, there's more to it:

Nome admits there is no reason she should be racking up unpaid medical bills - which have now topped $1 million - but says she has nowhere else to turn.

Now Kaiser Permanente's San Rafael Medical Center in California is suing her for the cost of her stay and trying to show her the door.

But wait, there's more to it:

"The thing is, I have no medical problem. I've been here more than a year, never had any medication, never had any treatment, never had a fever, have a perfect heart, blood pressure is like a teenager," Nome said in a telephone interview from the hospital north of San Francisco. "It isn't that I'm not ready to go. I just have nowhere to go."

...

Nome's troubles began, her daughter Jane Sands says, in 2002 when she broke both her legs while living alone. After several operations, Nome could no longer care for herself and was admitted to the first of several nursing homes.

The most recent one, Nome claims, sent her to the hospital against her will. Hospital officials say she was admitted for a weeklong psychiatric evaluation, was deemed to be in good mental health, was then ordered released.

But because she is suing the nursing homes where she lived before she was hospitalized, Nome and her daughter claim she has no choice but to stay put. Nome is suing the last home she lived in, Greenbrae Care Center, for sending her to the hospital.

Anthony Wright, executive director of the health care advocacy group Health Access California, said Nome's situation highlights a larger, nationwide problem.

"This issue is becoming more and more contentious because ... we don't have a long-term care policy in this country, so there is no set way that we take care of seniors who need ongoing care," he said.

Now, that concept has been swept into the dustbin of old ideas, replaced with sending folks to "nursing homes" and "retirement communities" with no further thought attributed to them other than obligitory holiday visits, if those are even remembered.

Some say, "I don't have time in my busy life to take care of them!" That begs the question: who will care for you in your old age?

This is a fundamental problem that the slow change in our culture from "extended family" to "nuclear family" to "individual at the expense of family" has not developed a solution for.

This is a fundamental problem that will only grow as the Baby Boomers age, regardless of any changes in Social Security or other benefits to the elderly from the government.

Think about it, and how it will affect YOU when you are old and grey.

UPDATE: I'm not trying to imply that what this woman is doing is anything remotely justified or moral, what I am trying to point out is that we have a huge number of people who soon will need some type of care, and currently we have no accepted way of paying for it if we choose nursing homes or retirement communities. What happens when there is no more money?