My hair is white
My eyes are dim
My hands they shake
My steps are slow
But my heart still beats
With The Red Blood Of Love
You may hurt my body
You may confuse my mindYou may
take away my positionsYou may neglect and abandon meBut my
heart still beatsWith The Red Blood Of Love
Why do you
abuse me?Why do you neglect and abandon me?Can’t you
see that my heart still beatsWith the Red Blood Of LoveFor
you ... and for me. The United States of America has done wonders to promote safety for its children. As a country we
have many systems in place that alert us when a child is abducted or
abused. We feel a outrage when we hear stories of children
being abused by family members, friends and strangers.
Because
of the tremendous amount of public awareness and our collective involvement in bringing child
abusers to justice, we have seen a noticeable decline in child abuse,
abandonment, and neglect cases in recent years.
These steps are encouraging to those of us fighting to protect another relatively defenseless sector of our population ... our elders. This group suffers many of the same types of abuses; both physical and emotional. Some are abandoned, others neglected, others abused by family, friends and strangers -- the very people entrusted with their care. There is a tremendous need for public
awareness on this subject.
Though our elderly people are not
children -- and should never be treated or thought of as children -- they become, especially a they advance in years, increasingly dependent on others for their care and support. It's time for our media and social
networking powers to be put to use to engage the public. The time has come to see the this epidemic for what it is and to take steps to prevent and stop elder abuse.
What is Elder Abuse?An article from the Bay Area News dated
June 25, 2010 reported that a 70 year old female named Mary Jane Scanlon
hired a caretaker from craigslist.com. She was found dead in her home. She had been stabbed repeatedly. Her live-in caregiver, Diane Warrick, was
later arrested for the murder.
In the Laguna Woods
Orange County area of Southern California, a 90-year-old man hired a
caregiver who he met through another resident of the Laguna Woods
area. After caring for the 90-year-old man for three months, the
caregiver stopped showing up for work. Days later the 90-year-old man went to
his bank to make a withdrawal and found out that ninety thousand dollars
was taken from his account.
There are so many real life stories of
elder abuse that it would take volumes to write them all.
Here are just a few disturbing statistics:
- In
Los Angeles County CA, approximately 160,000 cases of elder and nursing
home abuse are reported each year.
- Los Angeles County
represents over 25% of all cases in California.
- Orange County, CA
follows Los Angeles County with 53,000 cases of elder abuse.
- Between
2007 and 2008 the number of elder abuse cases in Los Angeles CA grew by 5,039.
What do these statistics say? They paint a clear picture that elder abuse is on the rise, and that unless we, as concerned citizens, take a stand to stop
this fast moving and deadly menace to our society, you and I may one day
become one of those statistics.
Unfortunately there are
limited systems in place to protect our elderly at this time. We need to change that. We need a major public awareness campaign -- on par with the efforts used to stop child abuse -- to see see these figures decline.
But stop for a moment ... Think of elderly friends and families ... Think of the people who did so much to make this country what it is. These people gave of
themselves to younger generations; they created a legacy
that makes us all proud to be Americans. Some did great things ... some did small things with great love ... all
deserve our love and protection as they face their golden years.
I do believe that if
each person living in the United States of America would adopt the same
concerns for the elderly as we have done for our children, the abuse
of our elders would stop.
This article was
written to motivate people to get involved, to increase public awareness, and to bring
an end, or at least a decline, to the number of elder abuse cases.
Let us all stand up
for our elderly people living in our communities.Let us stand up
for those who sometimes are not able to stand up for themselves.Lets
us speak of elder abuse on our airwaves, at our dinner tables, at our
water coolers during our break times.Let us teach our children
the value of an elderly person.Let us get the abusers caught,
convicted and imprison.Please lend your voice to
STOP ELDER ABUSE
NOW.