Old people auctioned off like cattle in online eBay-style website in the UK

Tuesday, December 15, 2015 by: PF Louis
Tags: elder care, nursing homes, human auctions

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(NaturalNews) Apparently England's health care system is strained to the point that elder care distribution goes to the lowest bidder.

The UK system itself is open to the current e-bay style auctioning because family members of those too elderly to care for themselves, or too much trouble for those family members, are filtered through local city or county councils.

In other words, granny or pop is a mess. Here's his information, put it on a public forum and find a home for him, please. Those family members are not part of the process of finding what they believe would be the best elder care home. It's totally bureaucratic and within the UK healthcare system.

The problem is elder care funding has declined over the past several years. And since the councils that act as brokers between family members and elder care homes go through a computer program submitting personal information of elderly prospective clients, the subjective human choice is ignored completely while violating privacy rights.

Then those homes interested in accommodating more elderly or disabled folks will bid - eBay style. The bids remain for some hours or days until one is chosen by the council. Often grandma or grandpa goes to the lowest bidder.

The family and the elderly patient have no say in the selection as the money for the home comes from the UK healthcare system's funding.

Pro and con on this issue

Some feel this is the most efficient manner to expedite elderly people into care homes in light of decreased healthcare funding for the elderly. From that perspective, forcing elderly care homes' attempts at out low bidding others encourages costs to go down and preserve limited funds.

Those who favor this method also question the feasibility of families taking older relatives, usually parents, by the hand or personally checking out homes themselves to decide what would be most appropriate for them.

But many others consider this method inhumane, similar to auctioning off cattle. It would be wiser and more humane for the families to participate directly. Also, there are more quality issues with the elder care spending cuts.

Toward the end of 2014, the Care Quality Commission introduced tougher inspection routines to help improve elder care quality. After studying files from 9,816 inspections, a healthcare analysis group determined that 1,829 care homes did not fully comply with the new measures on one or more key measures.

Those failed measures included poor management, safety, and failing to react to residents' needs. Among the UK elder care homes, that suggests up to 73,000 people live in substandard care homes.

"No one would want their aging mum or dad to be 'auctioned'," asserted Jane Vass of the charity AgeUK. "Councils use all sorts of systems when they are procuring goods and services, but it's one thing for them to be, for example, buying computer supplies, quite another when they are organizing the future living arrangements for a frail older person."

Back in the USA

In the USA most homes or firms that run elder care homes are privately owned, but are able to take advantage of government programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

Older folks receiving low social security payments can look into the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. Usually the more well-healed are able to pick the very best homes.

But that's not so great in our pharmaceutical standard of care system. Residents are given psychotropic antidepressants as tranquilizers or sleeping pills. They are often heavily medicated.

An elder care home in Georgia administered flu shots and five elderly folks died shortly after. Truly, these are no countries for old men and women.

Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk

http://www.kentonline.co.uk

http://www.dailymail.co.uk

https://www.leonardcheshire.org/who-we-are#.VRD7m-Fv5ko