Weekend: Elderlies visitation


On Saturday of last week, a couple of us visited the elderlies in a nearby hospital. The front part of the building has 3 cages full of screaming budgies & cockatoo; at first I thought that we entered the wrong building, it sounded just like a vet hospital :D. But really, it is a nice, clean place with a circular center sort of like a centcom for nurses & doctors. There are 5 wings of bedrooms spread from the center centcom. The place has one dining/entertainment hall equipped with piano, electone, bingo machine, tv and a medium-sized industrial kitchen. The 20 x 20 ft bedrooms are sunny and clean and have indoor restroom. There were pictures & names of the people occupying the room on the outside wall of each bedroom.

Average age of the patient is around 70. We helped them playing bingo, sang couple of songs, and presented them colorful carnations and fruits. At lunch, some of the patients wanted to eat in their room. I, particularly, helped a nice lady in the wheelchair went back to her room. Her husband was sleeping on the other bed. The room was full of pictures their kids & grandkids, a nice little sanctuary. She asked me to put some water on the vase from the bottom of her dresser. I left her eating her lunch. On the way back to the dining hall, I saw a room with a bed without any spred and blanket. It turned out that the occupant just died that morning. "Another one bite the dust". Meanwhile, some of the patient had family visiting. There was a middle age woman spoon-fed her father, her daughter was in the room, watching the Saturday morning cartoon.

It was a nice experience to be there, to see some of them were so happy with the visit. It was depressing to see some just starred blankly, living on their own world with those needles & tubes. This whole thing made me realize, we all should think about the old age ahead.