I read this article in the Daily Mirror today
It is not a paper I normally read ,
But a story from the heart is a story from the heart no matter what paper it is printed in
Many members will have loved ones in care through both dementia and old age
The effects on me are old age , without exception the fear of my friends
of a similar age to myself is the fear of having to go into a care home now we are on our own
Not a very pleasant end of life thought
jimbo 111
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tony-parsons-care-homes-dignitas-1738234
“When my mother was in the last week of her life her great fear was that she would die surrounded by strangers.
She wasn’t afraid of pain. She wasn’t afraid of the cancer that was killing her. And she wasn’t afraid of death.
What scared my mum was the thought that she would be taken from her home and stuck in a care home where people didn’t know her and didn’t care about her.
And I thought of my mum this week when a new report by the Alzheimer’s Society revealed that the overwhelming majority of us have a real terror of ending our lives in a care home.
What are we afraid of?
Neglect. Abuse. A total lack of anything resembling care.
Last year six “carers” at the Winterbourne View home in Bristol were jailed for “cruel, callous and degrading” abuse of elderly residents.
This awful place is unlikely to be unique.
Why are we afraid of ending our lives in care?
Because far too many care homes are dumps, in every sense of the word.
Cruel, uncaring, shabby places that are incapable of showing human compassion when it is needed the most.
Here is the downside to the longer lives that we are all enjoying.
The Alzheimer’s Society says that a record number of patients in care homes have dementia – 322,000 out of 400,000 residents.
We hear so much baloney today about how we can all stay younger for longer.
This week a scientist said, in all seriousness, “72 is the new 30”.
Meaning a 72-year-old in the developed world now has the same life expectancy as a caveman did at 30.
And that’s lovely, but it means our generation has a problem with caring for the elderly that simply did not exist in the past.
These senior citizens need and deserve care that is worthy of the name. They are not getting it.
It is little wonder that 250 British people have made the one-way trip to Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas.
You would never have got my mum out there. There was no way her last meal would be Swiss nosh.
“Toblerone and fondue? Not for me, love.”
But personally I would much rather die in Dignitas than live in the torture chambers of a British care home.
The terminally ill should not have to travel to Switzerland. They should be allowed to die peacefully in their own country, surrounded by their loved ones.
There is no easy way to die. But we should all be allowed to do it with dignity.
In the end my mum got her wish to die at home. It did not seem very likely.
The little house in Billericay, Essex, where she lived for 40 years had become a prison.
As her cancer worsened, suddenly everything was difficult. The kitchen, the bath, the stairs.
I put a stairlift in and she used it once. But this modest house was home. The place where she had been a wife and mother.
Her life had been here. She wanted her death to be here too.
After staying by her side for a week, I left her in the care of her great friend Nellie, a retired NHS nurse, and I went back to London.
Her GP was visiting in the morning and I guessed he would not permit her to live at home any longer.
I started doing research because I knew that she would need some kind of professional care for the rest of her days.
But it wasn’t necessary. The phone call came just before dawn. My mum had died peacefully in her sleep.
And I thank God for my mother’s life, and for the great blessing that she never had to see the inside of a care home.”
for keeping this thread going 
