New York Times October 16, 2008
Is there room for pediatric nephrologists in a discussion on the New Old Age Blog? I was personally a caregiver to my parents and sister, though not in the front line. But I knew the devastating consequences of the lack of a rational caregiver system.
I think that Gross’s outlook and the subsequent comments could be extended from Old New Old, to young, even newborns, patients and their caregivers. Care recipients’ and caregivers’ loss of autonomy, dependency, financial negative impact, and disease or handicap-related day-to-day tasks is certainly common and not related to age. The approach to these new challenges needs to be familial, either biological or not biological, because no member of society will be excluded from the impact of care. A main goal is to prevent patients’ loss of even limited autonomy, relationships with friends, social life and to avoid the perverse cycle of solitude, isolation, ostracism and desolation. Eventually, this cycle could be shared between caregivers and care recipients.
I would like to emphasize two aspects of the challenge related to care or to be cared. First, the evil influence of modern ways of communication which lead people to look for help via phone calls, the exasperating, exhausting and never-ending recorded phone messages, and iterative reference to other recorded messages. We have the expertise to offer an interactive human voice, available in real time to communicate 24 hours a day with our patients on chronic dialysis. This resource is extremely important for the early treatment of complications, the coordination of procedures, or even merely to chat. Even the poorest of our patients have access to cell phones or SMS. Second, to emphasize the extreme importance of developing empathy between patients and health care staff – who play a main role and are often neglected adequate training - messengers, cleaning personnel, phone operators, doormen, nurse aids, who are in close contact with patients and care givers, and have more time to talk, to provide support in case of non-medical needs, for instance, emotional support or simply lend an ear to listen to their doubts.
Products of intelligence to achieve longevity, to overcome diseases or to live longer with them are growing fast to reach incredible achievements. Our contemporary social system related to the sensitivity, solidarity and behavior of people is far behind intelligence products. Gross’s sentence “long-term care system in this country (if you can call it a “system”) would collapse” isapplicable to the global village. Do we need a crisis such as the current financial crisis to take adequate measures?