| January 6, 2003
Letter: This could be your
finest hour
By Bee Becker
Dear Mr. President and Members
Of Congress:
This could
be your finest hour.
After
decades of doing next to nothing to redress the egregious failure of care
in most nursing homes in this country, this could be the Congress that
does what is honorable and humane.
You could
end discrimination against those too vulnerable to fight back.
You could
assure that vulnerable old and disabled people who live in nursing homes
have their day in criminal court when they are abused, neglected, or murdered
as people who live outside nursing homes have.
You could
assure that those people who commit these crimes or who condone them in
the interest of further enriching themselves are sent to prison rather
than write a plan of correction or receive a paltry fine that is far too
often never collected.
You could
assure that family members who watched someone they love suffer needless
pain and die before their time know the justice of a criminal court rather
than the lesser justice of a civil court, which would help dispel the anger
that is a living presence among us.
You could
assure that nearly one-third of the residents in nursing homes in this
country would not be abused every year, a number that those who conducted
The National Elder Abuse Incidence Study consider to be but the tip of
the iceberg.
You could
assure that the elderly enjoy the same protection under the law that children
enjoy under the protection of the Child Abuse and Protection Act of 1974.
You could
assure that in this country where we have laws to protect animals we will
longer accept that not one federal employee is working full time to prevent
elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation.
You could
assure that there would no longer be the outrageous disparity between federal
dollars spent to address abuse of children and federal dollars spent to
address abuse of the elderly: $163.5 Million for the elderly and $6.7 Billion
for children.
Yes, this
could be your finest hour, but if you fail to enact and enforce laws to
protect the most vulnerable among us, you are perpetuating a repeated cycle
of GAO reports, studies and Congressional hearings validating these conditions.
The failure to act now and in the past decades sends a message to Americans:
Your plight
is noted, validated; but we will not act on your behalf; the health/wealth
of the corporate healthcare world and their contributions toward our political
ambitions will remain a priority.
==========
My gratitude for MP's endless
assistance with this effort and many others.
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