I wanted to respond further to the issue of how the elderly are treated
by our medical system.     As someone who has worked within this system,
I sometimes take for granted that others have been exposed to the basic
situations of elderly people in bad health as they hit the system head
on.     But this is not usually true, And Hollywood has had a corrosive
effect upon the general public's understanding, including even amongst
the healthy elderly and those that provide care for them.

Just like with law, police, military, sports, etc.....Hollywod has
painted an idolized-idealized, fairy tale land picture of corporate
medicine.      People really believe this stuff, and sometimes even act
like they are in a soap opera when hospitalized.

So when I make real blunt statements that the elderly shoud be liberated
from the concentration camps and given food and water, this might not
quite be understood by some that have not been exposed sufficiently to
the realities.

Getting food and water is a major problem for the elderly within the
hospitals and nursing homes.      Workers on skates stick quickly,
spoons of unappetizing mush into peoples mouths too fast, and whisk off
in the middle of the 2 minute meal, and often do worse than even that.
Water????    Who has time for that?     It's not an item that has to be
really done, like documentation and procedures.

Clean up????    It's not high tech.

Restraints, chemical and otherwise, are several other major issues for
the elderly as they try to survive in these hell holes..     I'm sure
that all on the list have some awareness of these issues, but I have
found that the general media keeps people from TRULY understanding the
pervasiveness of this environment.

Even within these facilities amongst the workers, there is a sort of
whistle-while-you-work psychology that clouds clear vision.     I
imagine that this was also quite true in the concentration camp guards
in Europe during World War 2.     It is a basic self defense mechanism
to not concentrate on the suffering of others too much.

How did we get to be a system where so many elderly can't even get a
meal, or drink a sip of water, and are tied down like animals, or made
so crazy that they HAVE TO be tied down like animals?    And it is all
done in the name of medical care?

We need to cut this type of "medical care" out of the system.    Discard
it altogether.   How did we get so bad a characature of care?     A
gigantic fraud of caring?     Care by the uncaring?     How did it
happen?

Tony Abdo