Yone Minagawa, who became the world’s oldest person earlier this year died in a nursing home in southwestern Japan. She was 114.
It is amazing to note that she outlived all her children except her youngest daughter, who I think will also live longer. Japan has one of the world’s longest average life spans – a factor often attributed to a healthy diet rich in rice and fish. But I’d have to add the efficient service of nursing homes to this long life expectancy.
The nursing home:
Growing up in a country with different family values, I would cringe at the thought of living and dying in a nursing home. In my vocabulary 20 years ago, that is harsh, disrespectful and the most unloving gesture children can do to their parents.
Year 1999 – M took me to his hometown and we visited his grandmother at the nursing home for the first time. He did not tell me anything about a relative living in a nursing home so I was shocked and ready to question his family values as soon as we parked the car. Why did he allow his grandma to live in an isolated place, away from her family?
When we were there and finally met her, I realized that I had been wrong.
She was happy there, with friends who share the same interests with her, she is around qualified nurses, with a resident doctor that will attend to her needs 24/7. The nursing home is temperature controlled, very warm and cozy at the peak of winter and very comfortable even during the hideously humid and hot Japan summers. Food is served in a balanced way, programs are held and the elders love it very much. They even have outings in spring.
Families put their elderly in nursing homes not because they don’t love them. It means they care for them, more than anything.
The temperature inside my in-law’s house in Japan is almost the same as outside during winter. I hate how I have to cover myself in more than 10 kilos of thick blanket. I hate how I breath white smoke inside the house. Only one part of the house is warmed, the living room while the rest is dead cold. Central heating or fire places are not popular in Japan.
If M’s grandma stayed in my in-law’s home, she would not be around now. M’s paternal grandmother stayed in the house and died 6 years ago of pneumonia. She was just 78.
Left pic taken August 2006 and right pic taken August 2005
Pristine and Kono ba-chan share the same birthday, 85 years apart
* In 2006, Japanese women set a new record for life expectancy at 85.81 years, while men live at the average of about 79 years. *
** Kono ba-chan’s mother lived until 95 **
jahon (6)
Grace (5)
Kayla @ TheEclecticElement (4)
Maribeth (2)
Raycillient (2)
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
filipinos have a very bad concept of a nursing home because nursing homes in the philippines is not really a nice place! it’s uncomfortable, terrible conditions, under budget and inferior facilities – depressing and almost looks like a hospital ward on a neglected hospital, and definitely do not match, not even a bit, the ones in japan. this is why as filipinos we think it’s disrespectful to have our elderly loved ones stay in that kind of facility.
on the second thought … i don’t think you call it ‘nursing home’ in the philippines. it’s ‘home for the aged’… even the name is depressing!
That japanese nursing home sure sounds like one of the good places. I’m afraid the quality of nursing homes varies very much between the different institutions. Some of them here in Germany are very nice places, too. But others are just a place where old people wait for death. Unfortunately the nice ones are so inordinately expensive that not many people can afford them.
I think, it is not per sè a bad thing if you let your parents live in a nursing home, at least once they’re not able to fend for themselves anymore. Nowadays, if you have to work full-time you just don’t have the time to properly care for an elderly, and possibly sick, person. So they are much better looked after – on a day-to-day basis – in a proper nursing home. What I find really sad is the fact that some people just send their parents to a nursing home and then visit them maybe twice a year. Now that is unloving and disrespectful.
That said, when my maternal grandparents both became ill and had to be cared for almost round the clock, my aunt (who inherited their house) kept them at home where they could live out their last years in familiar surroundings. The rest of the family came by once or twice a week to visit them. That was surely nice for us, and also for the old people, but I don’t really think my aunt knew beforehand what she was in for, especially when my grandpa became very sick at the end. I love my parents very much, but I don’t know if I could do that for them…
In the US, the good ones are outrageously expensive. The normal, average Nursing Home is pretty bad. I hope I can stay home until the day God takes me.
It’s the field that i am into now Grace…caring for the elderly or child care.
Our training is very rigid…5 days for every module…exam everyday.
I will be on my first month tomorrow, and so far so good…
It’s interesting to hear about nursing homes elsewhere. I live in the US, and I would agree the nursing homes here are mixed.
I’m also in the unusual position to have nursing services at home for my three-and-a-half year old daughter (a special Medicaid waver program due to my daughter’s significant health care needs). In-home nursing care is actually my preference. Being able to keep our family physically, emotionally, and socially together with nursing services in-home has been a huge blessing.
{ 1 trackback }