Opinion: Look the other way

Look th eother way

Long-term care issues are regularly at the forefront of Ontario health care discussions. The Ontario Medical Association, the Ontario Nurses Association, and the Ontario Personal Support Workers Association are screaming as if their hair is on fire, about the crisis.

Advocacy groups for the disabled, solicitous, concerned children of the elderly and outspoken suffering consumers of service themselves, are banning together and becoming vocal about the need for changes. Every politician seems compassionate and genuine, when seeking election, and promises to fight for better care for citizens who need long-term care.

And yet change for the better seems to be a long time coming no matter who the power leaders are at the top.

Every day social media sites like Advocates for Long-Term Care Reform in Ontario post stories of neglect, abuse and corruption. They are heart wrenching and bring tears to your eyes just thinking about such vulnerable people enduring such suffering while living in residences purportedly meant to meet their needs on the home stretch kindly and competently.

No one can possibly say we do not know about the problems in those residences. No one can say all kinds of us do not care about the pain and suffering experienced in them. But why

Every politician seems compassionate and genuine . . . . And yet change for the better seems to be a long time coming no matter who the power leaders are at the top.

we have not been able to ameliorate them, under any government in my lifetime, is the question.

Should we look at our basic value system perhaps and how we raise our young to keep the status quo in place? Should we rethink the value of socializing everyone to not rock the boat, despite pain and anguish inflicted on the vulnerable, despite the abuse of workers, despite the frustration in every profession involved, and despite the very likely prospect of our own selves and loved ones having to end life, in one of these places we call a ‘home’?

When a toddlers take a $1 toy from a shelf at the ‘Buck or Two’, do we insist it be taken back, or do we look the other way? When a five year old steals a bag of jelly beans from his teacher’s desk, do we say that's normal for kids, and look the other way? Do we say ‘Right choice, son!’, to our fifth grader when he decides to not snitch to the teacher that his buddy cheated during a test? Do we see our teenager support a bully in his class, tell him to say nothing or he may be the next target, and best he looks the other way? Does a chaperoning teacher at a school dance, report students for drinking, smoking, or drug possession to his principal, and get only an apathetic look, no response and a turned back walking away that once belonged to a stellar inspiring teacher who vowed to make a difference? Does a young professional in the workplace see theft or corruption and get told to be a ‘team player’ and look the other way? Is this what happens to our elected leaders, hell bent for leather to change the system when they idealistically decide to sacrifice their lives to public service, but learn quickly that survival often means they too, must often look the other way?

Is that the source of our problems? Are we starting in the cradles of the nation teaching our little ones to look the other way? Are we preparing them for an adult world that seems to value and support those who are good at looking the other way? Are these the values we truly want and is this the best way of looking at the world for our children, who will one day take over the reins of power?

‘How is that working for you?’ Dr. Phil McGraw would probably ask us.

‘Not too freakin’ good!’ most of us would have to admit. ‘Just not that freakin’ good!’

Perhaps our society should take a look at that, when we seek ways to escape the ever enlarging confusing concentric circles of the maze in which we run, characterized by the slowness of societal change, and paved with current hot button discussions, policies and practices about long-term care reform n