I've written a number of posts over the years about the Community Choice Act, that can be found here.
My thoughts on why this is vital legislation are here.
Here are many stories from people with disabilities who have been institutionalized and placed in nursing homes.
It's heartbreaking when you know young people with disabilities who are placed in nursing homes and never get out. It's a slippery slope. A friend of mine who spent many months rehabbing his spinal cord injury so he could live independently was placed in a nursing home because he had no way to get care at home. He was not out of bed in the nursing home and lost the function he had. There was no way to get him the kind of intensive, expensive help he had for his initial rehab and his disability is now worse. Had he stayed in community care, he could have maintained the level of independence he fought so hard to acquire.
There are many others like him. Many who could live at home, in their communities, need legislation like the Community Choice Act passed to make that happen. When the USCCB wrote a letter supporting the CCA, it said that
In recent decades, our Church has come to a greater understanding of the needs of our brothers and sisters with disabilities. In 1978, the bishops issued their Pastoral Statement on People with Disabilities. In that statement, the bishops called upon all people of good will to work with people with disabilities to improve their living conditions and ensure that each individual is able to achieve the fullest measure of personal development of which he or she is capable. It is in that spirit that we are pleased to support the Community Choice Act. With the services that the bill would make available, more people with disabilities will be able to move from institutional care to lives of independence in their communities."
Nursing homes are for those who are sick and are far from being a home for someone who has a disability. It is so easy to ignore the stories of those who are in nursing homes, to turn from their voices. What they say is sometimes hard to hear. The very nature of what's going on means that those of us out in society and community are distanced from those in nursing homes.
Once again, I'll let Nick tell you himself.
Nick's Crusade Blog - April 28, 2009 from Alejandra Ospina on Vimeo.
If you want to contact your representatives, click here.
6 comments:
I'd like to understand more about what it's like in a nursing home. Any books you can recommend?
Thomas Gass, a former nursing home aide, wrote a book called Nobody's Home. Reviews can be found here:
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4135
I'll leave comments open if others have suggestions.
Thanks, Wheelie, for this much-needed posting. I'll contact my representative ASAP in support of CCA, and check for more resources on nursing homes.
thank you, Full Tilt :)
All of those volunteers arrested yesterday, on behalf of all of us...some of the comments to the news articles are disheartening and probably a representative cross-slice of the ways people think about disability.
I don't know of any written first-person accounts, but I can say that the institutional system of nursing care can be patronizing and remove people's personal autonomy and ability to make some personal decisions/basic choices for themselves. My belief, unbacked by fact, is that there's probably a higher risk of abuse in nursing homes than at home. And despite all the people, they're lonely and isolating.
Frida-
The comments range all over the place. There's a much different reaction from people when you raise these issues as civil rights.
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