CAREFUL, PLEASE or HELP WANTED

"You shall no longer be called forsaken…"

Isaiah 62:4

Would you call Holland a caring community? There are people today working all over our town. They bathe and bathroom and dress and feed our grandparents and great uncles and aunts who are too weak or disoriented to do this for themselves. And most of them have to do it in a great big hurry.

"Thank God they're here" we might say to ourselves, passing by one of our neighborhoods facilities, perhaps noticing again the help wanted signs, wondering if we might ever find ourselves living there someday should our own families be unable to care for us.

No, most folks if they are honest would say it's no one's first choice. Still, our area nursing homes and assisted living centers make possible a certain quality of living for thousands in our community.

Or do they?

Meet Grace: A woman in her early 30's whose found her calling and has cared for many elderly individuals, most of whom were disabled to the point of needing consistent daily care. To an interview last winter she brought experience from group homes in the greater Grand Rapids area in hopes of better pay and benefits for a kind of work she realized could be challenging but also very rewarding. A care facility here in Holland promised a fairly competitive hourly rate ($18 per hour, with prior experience,) insurance and a benefits package (including 401(k).) It also painted the vision of a work environment that reflected the values of equity and fairness among staff members and a conscientious scrutiny of quality care through shared accountability.

"Given what I'd had before I was actually drawn to the pay and benefits," she mentioned in our recent interview. "But I also thought I'd get to know some of my patients, learn their names and needs. It's the relationships that you can build that makes this challenging work worth doing. Caring for people takes time."

Instead, from day one, she witnessed the cacophony of "buzzing call-lights" she was responsible to answer, behind each one an individual in need of restroom care or, in some of the worst instances, someone who'd fallen or become injured in an attempt to care for themselves after a "too - long" wait for assistance. "I worked there only three weeks and they were critically shortstaffed the entire time," she said. The worst of it, she went on to narrate, was an evening when yet another of her counterparts had called in sick (a routine from the outset) leaving her to scramble between as many as 48 patients over a 12 hour period without any support. "It was horrible" she said.

Still, it was the callousness and apathy of some of her counterparts on staff that was the hardest to swallow. The individuals she worked with were gruff and impolite, seemingly disconnected from who they were handling and "why they were there in the first place." On some occasions older attendants would even discourage Alzheimer’s patients from taking necessary showers which were otherwise mandated unless a resident requested a pass. Grace's manager, after hearing her complaints, offered her a shift or two at a "lighter-care" building, but that soon ended. Despite feeling much empathy for her sometimes overwhelmed manager, here again, it was the complacency and sense of fatalism that led Grace to move on to other employment.

She left with feelings of abandonment and profound guilt. To this day she drives to work another way so she doesn't have to be reminded of what happened there that night and what still might be going on.

Without too much effort most of us can imagine what it would feel like as an older person, the disabilities accruing with demands for a slower pace to accommodate aches and pains that naturally attend each of our bodies in late life. With paperthin skin of our own, we can see ourselves being rushed through the bathroom, led impatiently by the arm or forced out of bed to handle what are often called "dailies" with only as much as 15 minutes to shower and groom and dress.

On the other hand, many who offer care for loved ones of their own can empathize with overloaded care attendants. Communicating with people who have dementia or Alzheimer's can make it difficult to form bonds of mutual trust and understanding. Perhaps many could see how easy it would be to begin by first fearing we might hurt someone, only to watch that more compassionate response slowly diminish to a more a-pathic posture where bumps and scrapes and frightening long waits just "come with the territory."

So what should WE do? If we are a caring community, how does that take shape? What does it look like? We hear terrible stories like this from time to time, don't we? What does that alone suggest about our culture and our priorities?

Should we recommend that families keep a closer eye on grandpa and hold managers more accountable? Yes. Should we suggest a call to the ombudsman or other local officials who govern and police underfunctioning facilities? Yes. Should we thank and encourage hospitals nearby for their continued efforts to make sure the worst cases are investigated? Yes, indeed.

Either way, it seems important to stop and listen to stories like these. Let them affect us, even trouble our hearts. Just a few years ago many remember Holland being touted as one of the happiest cities in the country, and goodness gracious how many churches do these people need? Caring for the vulnerable and the elderly has been a challenge for human beings as long as there have been human beings. Many of the religious in our town, of which I am but one, could tell you how serious the prophets and Jesus were about remembering them in all their frailty and forgottenness.

In fact, during his time he was no fundraiser encouraging the building up of bigger churches and seminaries. Jesus washed their feet. It's good work.

At the close of the first month of a brand-new year, are there new partnerships that could be explored? What efforts already exist among churches and community organizations whose voices could further be amplified? Could area colleges and vocational training agencies be further supported as they promote viable opportunities for qualified young people thus meeting the basic needs of our cherished elders and friends? After all, do we not belong to God and also to each other?

Rev. Randy Smit is a pastor, writer and founder of Compassionate Connection, a ministry of Hope Church, RCA. https://www.facebook.com/Compassionate-Connection-Ministry-505409932889624/. He and his wife Jill live in Holland.