20211128共享天倫暖人間Placing a New Focus on Senior Welfare
Since we inaugurated our nursing home in 2014, we have not forgotten Master’s expectation for our nursing home. Since hopes that this is a temporary stop between the hospital and home and that the elderly can be at ease living here. To run such a nursing home, top achieve this for the past years. Under the guidance of Asst. Supt. Chuang, the percentage of residents returning home has become a new measurement for us. For us, it’s 62%, which surpasses the 58% we had in 2017 when we received the bronze award. There’s no such thing as the best. We can do better, and we’ll continue to improve.
At the very beginning my hope for our nursing home is for its residents not to live there permanently. I hope that staying in the nursing home is just a recovery process. Eventually, the elderly can go home and enjoy a family life.
I hope that we can guide the children of these elderly people to have filial piety. Even though nowadays, society is such that young people need to work and could not take care of their elderly. Our hope is that, during difficult times, our nursing home helps them take care of the elderly. Besides going to the hospital, our nursing home can provide care to the elderly for a longer period of time until their conditions have improved to the point where they can go home and let their children take care of them.
Of course, this also serves as an education. Their children also have children of their own. They serve as an example for their children to see how to take care of their won elderly parents. As a parent now, how are they taking care of their elderly? There’s a Taiwanese saying that how you treat your father is how your son will treat you. Letting children see how we take care of our elderly is educating them.
Every family should have this kind of example and education for their children. This is the beauty of human relation. I’m very grateful to our nursing home. We’ve achieved this. I’m happy to hear that we have a group of young nursing staff doing this. Every time I come to Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital I hear reports of how they tenderly care for the elderly.
We do this not for the silver, gold, or diamond awards. That is not why; we do this because this is what being compassionate is about, and it is what we need to do. Since we are doing this, our sincerity and earnest love must be cultivated.
I’m going to talk about our patient, Wongo. Last October, with neuritis on both feet, and other chronic diseases like hypertension, he came to our nursing home. He had no strength in his arms and legs and relied on others pushing him on his wheelchair. More importantly, he did not have a place to live, and couldn’t take care of himself, so physically and emotionally, he was in pain and felt very inferior.
For Wongo, life at the nursing home is so boring because he is clear-headed, so we used methods and guided him to interact with us. This year, the COVID situation was severe, so we had to individually wrap all the face masks for our staff. I said to Wongo, I really need help. I got no one to help me. Can you help me?
Every time, he would say, hell no, I don’t want to. But as he said that, he would glide to the nursing station to help wrap the face masks. Then, I suggested to Wongo, instead of hell no, say Amituofo. Amituofo. Think of that as your new catchphrase. He did better and became happier too.
After our encouragement, which was a team effort, he was determined to befriend his neuritis, actually, his neuritis was incurable, and he described that he pain was so unbearable that it’s like being in hell. It hurt just to stand, but he thought that he had to be mobile in order to live his life, so he’d overcome that pain. He put on a back brace and practiced walking, with brimming motivation and so much courage.
When he came to us, he was on the bed-rest, then, the wheelchair, and the walker. Before he went home, he expressed his gratitude to us for his physical therapy, and our doctor from the family medicine did his assessment. His steps used to stumble, truly stumble, and he said that it hurt to stand. Now, he takes solid steps and walks with a walker. On Oct. 30, he finally got to go home.
We must find a way, a kinder, more compassionate way to interact with residents, so they know that being ill is the law of nature, however, he can still feel that someone cares about me and my feelings. That way, they feel that someone cares. Through interactions, our nurses guide and educate their family.
For those without family, our hospital has a nursing home that can care for them. Aging and being ill bring much suffering. Being dead is not complicated; what’s complicated is not being able to die. Some diseases drag on and on, and one could only wait for death to come.
If it isn’t time yet, he has to go on with a body that is ill. Such quality of life is horrible yet he does not die. How miserable! Hence, let us recognize that kind of misery. No one knows what the future has in store for us; let us do our best, and employ the compassion that allows us to feel others’ pain and suffering as our very own. Because we cannot bear to see others suffer, we do our best.
Recently, I’ve been talking about the value of life. Still, I’d like to tell all medical personnel, you have to remember your value in life. In the world, you have chosen your direction to care for patients, because being born in this world, it’s inevitable for us to fall ill and suffer from illnesses. Therefore, for you doctors and nurses, doing your best to take care of patients and let them feel being cared for is truly important.
Are we able to make this happen? Typical nursing homes do not provide medical services but they can take good care of their residents. But they can take good care of their residents. When the residents fall ill, our hospital mindfully treats the patients until they can return to their nursing home. If it can be like this, it’d be very heartwarming, this provides the elderly residents support and keep them going until their time comes.
This is what our society may face and need in the future. Now, due to the low birth rate, and with young people leaving home and living far away, in the near future, elderly people will face this problem. This problem is not about poverty. Even the rich will have the same problem. For elderly with few children and their children living in faraway places, we have to run our nursing home with this in mind.
See whether we can address this need. Regardless of rich or poor, we can provide all elderly the same medical care, so in their daily living, they can be cared for until they pass away. Are we able to do this?
This will rely on us to set an example; don’t just focus on our own institute, we should also try to make positive impacts on all other institutes. If we can succeed in this, it will truly create blessings in the world. Let’s encourage one another to do this.
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