I may not have time to revise or rewrite this offering. But, I post it now because I do feel that it's worth getting some description out in public, even if the account be partial and flawed.
How can I summarize the chaos of the
past few days?
In-home health care helpers fighting
with one another. As I understand the conflict,
they run around all day, driving in
their cars from one patient to another. Schedules are not
fixed and this requires a lot of
negotiating over the telephone:
„Hell, Mrs. X, this is Gloria. Can
I come to give Fred his shower in
about thirty minutes?“
„Hello Mrx. X, this is Louise, Can I
come to examine your husband?
In about an hour?“
So, when the lady who gives my dad a
shower came just before the PT lady.......
the ladies were in conflict not merely
temporally. Discussion ensued....
When does she (the shower lady)
usually come?
Her company gives her no fixed
schedule.
Am I to draw the conclusion that two
different for-profit companies are competing
for the money my parents have, or the
money they've saved up through Medicare?
As an outsider to their debate, I could
only see that two women of approximately the same age, and with
similar social status, employment opportunities, were in conflict,
and both were refusing to give any ground. Neither would do or say
anything to decrease the tension.
My eighty-seven year old mother, and my
eighty-eight year-old father were in the thick of it.
It could not have been pleasant for my
parents.
Do I blame the individuals? I see them
as cogs in a machine, with limited freedom to move. Their employers
use them, mercilessly and without apology or allowance for any
frailities intrinsic to the human frame. On the contrary, in
addition to the inevitable needs of the human body and human soul, we
have now added technological needs: the need to recharge telephones,
and pay for gasoline for vehicles, and other technological
structures, all making the possibility for break-down more likely.
Of course, the quarrelling ladies don't
see it my way. They want to fight for life within a system they
cannot change. But, they do have to fight. And, it seems to me that
their resentment towards one another is misplaced. On the contrary,
the more they blame another worker and direct their passion for
justice toward that visible competitor, the less do the companies and
the miserable corrupt system have to face their ire.
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