We all have parents, some of us have children–and all of us are getting older. My own mother is now 91. The Golden Age of Retirement has turned out to be more brass than anything else.

Look at what happens as you age. And, let’s get beyond the obvious: your body falls apart, your doctor(s) becomes the person you see the most, the books start piling up in the washroom. And, you shrink.

But in terms of what Canadian Dimension readers would be most interested in:

The way the government system works, you lose control over your life when you lose control over your body. Once you are “panelled”–assessed for a “personal care home”–and found to either be too physically weak to look after yourself, or too cognitively impaired to be responsible for yourself–or both–well, buddy kiss that sense of empowerment good-bye.

It starts with having twenty-four hours’ notice you are being moved to a facility. If you are in a hospital and disagree, the government will charge you an outrageous amount per each day you occupy a hospital bed and do not accept what it orders you to do.

Then you lose your personal family doctor–the doctor for the personal care home takes over.

My mother was placed on a floor largely designated for “wanderers”–residents with serious cognitive impairments, who often are not verbal. As far as I can tell, she was placed there because it was a for profit facility and it had a vacant bed to fill. We never saw a personal care plan for my mother until I started to insist. Staffing levels meet the minimum government standards–and provincial government standards for nursing hours to be dedicated to individual residents have not changed in thirty years.

A lot has changed in thirty years–people live longer, their medical problems become more complex–but here in Manitoba, apparently no need has been seen to increase the number of nursing hours available. The reason no need has been seen was because: it costs money.

I have not written many blog posts in the past few months because I have entered this twilight world as my mother’s personal care provider.

More posts are on the way!

Victor Schwartzman lives in Winnipeg. He mostly writes fables and poetry, but also runs the book review socially conscious poetry sections at Outsider Writers (www.outsiderwriters.org). Read other posts by Victor Schwartzman.