She always said it "when I need a lot of care, you take me to a residence, I don't want to give you work". Just like we did with my grandparents 25 years ago.
Marisa, my mother, is 85 years old, she is a woman with osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, no teeth, with half her tongue due to cancer and stage 5 kidney disease who needs help for everything, she cannot walk and can barely get up from the armchair to the wheelchair but her head works perfectly. She is happy with little: her books, her classic cinema and eating delicious things like a potato omelet from my husband.
Until June of last year she had been living in her house, 5 minutes from ours. A lady helped her. We had to keep increasing her hours and we took care of her on the weekend. But each time she needed more and leaving her alone at night was a tremendous concern.
Perhaps I tell this because I need to justify our decision to apply for a place in the residence.
Total "if she is going to do the same as at home", " she will have a single room and we will bring her a big TV so she can watch her movies", "the residence menu is varied and the residents meet once a month to make suggestions" and the most important "she will be better cared for than at home".
Lanzarote is a paradise to live in but not if you are a dependent person. There are several residences but only one has private places: Amavir Tías. To enter the public places you need to have dependency in degree 2 or 3. To enter the private ones you only have to pay 2,600€/month.
My mother has grade 1. We have been waiting 2 years for the grade review.
They forgot about her in the shower, freshly showered, sitting in the bath chair. She got up, with the wet floor, and managed to reach the walker and then to her armchair.
They broke his hearing aid and nobody took responsibility until I arrived, who was off the island. He/She could no longer watch his/her movies and, the bad thing, is that, in those 2 weeks, he/she forgot how to use the TV. He/She no longer knows how to do it.
If what is on the menu you cannot eat, they don't give you an alternative...try eating breaded loin without teeth...
She has slept without sheets, directly on the plastic protector due to "a stock breakage" and they have dried her with the night sheets wet from the leaks.
For not to speak of the of times that me her I have found with the diaper overflowing because she has been more than 8h without that her they change.
And, I remind you, he/she pays €2600/month.
I could go on because the list is endless.
We have complained using all possible avenues and everyone apologizes, they throw their hands to their head, they nod trying to empathize with you but it is not enough.
The worst is that Marisa is sad now and we don't have another option.
She doesn't want to be there... and I don't want to see her spend her last days there either.
Is this the best we have for our grandparents? Is this what awaits us? Shouldn't institutions assume responsibility so that residences do not dehumanize our elders while cutting back on sheets to have greater income?
I would like to highlight that, from my point of view, it is not a problem of the people who work there. There are some workers who have an incredible human quality and do what they can for the grandparents. We cannot forget that it is a very hard job physically and emotionally. This is a problem of management and supervision.
Lastly, I would like to invite Marci Acuña to visit the residence, without warning, to enter the right wing and think if it is normal that a residence smells like that.
