Since April 28th, we have had over 10 inches of rain locally - and more than 12 inches in some parts of Arkansas. My mother's basement flooded with the first rain, and she and her husband have vacuumed water - sometimes as much as 4" deep - every single day for 2 weeks. Mother says that, at 70 years of age, they are too old to face this every time heavy rains come. So they are sorting and moving things, and vacuuming water... and they plan to dig out a trench in the concrete on 3 walls of the basement and install a sump pump. Hopefully that will help.What DO seniors do when things like this happen? We have offered to help my mom, but she and her husband insist that they can manage... but what if they were 80 instead of 70? I did help Mom sort through things for a few hours yesterday afternoon - Happy Mother's Day! - but what if she had no children? How would she manage?
Do you see where I am headed with this? There are going to be more and more situations like this cropping up in the future, as our population ages... and more and more services are going to be needed to accommodate these needs. As I see it, the big issue will be how to compensate those who provide these services... certainly this doesn't fall under the Medicare umbrella! And yet many seniors will be unable to afford to pay anywhere near what these services are worth! At the same time, those caregivers who are sandwiched between this group and their own young family will be stretched to the max already... with little to no time to attend to these issues.
Any ideas?
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