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Comment by lnsru | Hacker News Reader

An elderly lady just died in the neighborhood at the age of 67 from something diabetes related. It shocked me to see me how well dressed and with which expensive car their kids arrived to clear the rented place. The lady could barely walk, but was living in the 1st floor. She wasn’t able to reach ground floor alone in most days.

What I want to say is I am still shocked from the heartless western society where it is the norm to put one’s parents into ugly understaffed, but very expensive care facility waiting them to die. Even a modern one with a crate on wheels with a display in it.

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Have you considered what was the dynamic between them? how mentally stable that elderly people are?

I've spent over one year living with person with alcoholic dementia

and I've heard stories of other people with similar problems and this is pure terror that you cannot even imagine unless you live thru it.

Sorry to hear your story. But I don’t think, that it is a major population problem. I am rather from East, there were hard cases but or complex medical needs of the elderly in my childhood, but most parents died in the same living space with their kids. Here in Germany it is standard to put old people in care homes and complain how expensive they are.

Have you considered how expensive is it not to put them in a care home? When you are personally liable for everything those people do and experience because you're their legal guardian? At some point you may have to quit your job to take proper care of them. Can you afford that?

> Here in Germany it is standard to put old people in care homes and complain how expensive they are.

Yeah. Well, go figure. 24/7 care is 3 people working shifts taking care of someone, or being at least on standby. Your payment goes for a wage of minimum 3, facility heating, electricity, their expenses, food, and so on.

If you don’t want to be a dead weight to your children, you have options. You can pay extra money privately into the system, or you can buy a house which the retirement provider will happily accept as a payment, or your children can sell, or accumulate wealth in another way. However, as being rich or owning a house is quickly falling out of fashion, your options could be a bit limited.

>Have you considered what was the dynamic between them?

I don't think we need to speculate about the details of the individual case. In general the OP is absolutely right. In the West we by and large treat the elderly like burdens, or even worse, disposable. I moved from Germany to Japan shortly before the pandemic and the difference in respect for the elderly and their safety during that time was considerable.

My elderly mother is determined to end her days in the city she spent most of her life in. Fair enough, but that's at least five hours drive away from where I'm living with my family and job. She has had a couple of minor strokes already and has dizzy spells that make continuing to walk up the stairs increasingly perilous, and she routinely forgets to take her medicines. So she needs routine hands-on care. I could provide a poor version of this by incessantly shuttling across the country (destroying my own family - her grandchildren - in the process), I could try to browbeat her into moving cities & become public enemy #1, or I can keep with the current project of moving her into the nicest & most supportive residential care I can find.

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