Human Homecare

Here in the Netherlands, there’s an annual award for the best TV commercial, which is voted for by the public. Usually, the winner is a commercial with humour, but this year, the winner was the commercial produced by the Dutch Socialist Party for its campaign for better homecare for the elderly. The commercial is startlingly simple, and probably quite shocking to many people. It also probably could not get screened in many countries.

It is exceedingly effective. Go and watch it here.

I am reminded about something that happened earlier this week. I had gone to Amsterdam by train to visit the bookshops. On the train from Arnhem to Utrecht, I overheard an elderly lady telling her friend the following story.

My brother is 80, and together with his wife, he lives in an old people’s home in The Hague. His wife is somewhat senile, so they have separate rooms. Recently, I went to visit him, and when I got to his room, I found the door shut and locked. That’s unusual, because his door is usually open, but I thought that perhaps he was visiting his wife. However, when I went to her room, I found her alone. I went back to his room, and as there was a cleaner in the corridor, I asked her where Mr. Hooft might be. “Mr Hooft?”, she replied, “He doesn’t live here anymore”.

Well, I was astonished, and went to the office. I asked the person there where Mr. Hooft was. “Mr. Hooft?”, she replied, “He doesn’t live here anymore”. “But, how is that possible?” I said, “What do you mean?” She reacted sharply to me: “And who might you be, madame?” “I’m his sister”, I replied, “What is going on here?”

Well, she then told me that he had had a fall, and been sent to hospital. While he was there, the home’s administrators decided that it would be better that he didn’t return there, and arranged for him to be put into another home in Voorburg. They didn’t tell anyone else in the family, not me, not my other brother who is supposed to be our contact point, they just went ahead and did it. So there I found him, stuck in another home in Voorburg, separated from his wife, and no-one knew or cared…

As Bette Davis once said: “Old Age is no place for sissies”. Your dignity is likely to be the first casualty.