How can we help each other?
By Theresa Camoriano
I just returned from Texas, where I visited my parents and was there for my mother’s hip operation. When she had her first hip replacement at age 70, she hoped it would last for the rest of her life, but, fortunately, she has lived another seventeen years, and another repair was needed. We are very thankful that my father is in good enough shape to be able to take care of her at home, but, after she was released from the hospital on Friday, after I had returned to Louisville, their first weekend at home alone was pretty rough. They were completely on their own for the weekend, with the visiting nurse and physical therapist not scheduled to arrive until Monday, and they were worried and afraid of how they would manage. They got very little sleep, and my mother’s worrying drove her blood pressure up so much that my father had to call EMS in the middle of the night.
It has occurred to me that there probably are many people in a position similar to my parents, and there will be more, as Medicare covers fewer and fewer services. It would be nice if there were a way for a volunteer organization to be able to find out when people are in that situation so someone could just stop by to drop off a meal and provide some human contact. I think that kind of support would have been a huge help to my parents if it had been available.
I was thinking that might be something our Louisville 912 group could do for people here in our area, or that we could form a volunteer group for that purpose, but I am not sure how we could find out who needed our help. People like my parents would be too proud to sign up for a free meal, and all the privacy laws would prevent the hospital or other service providers from letting us know who needed help.
One of the problems with the government having taken control of so many aspects of our lives, from health care to education, is that it has driven out the volunteer organizations that would otherwise have been available to provide help and support. But, as government has to scale back its services due to lack of money, the need for volunteer help will continue to grow. Clearly, it is time for us to get back to good old American volunteerism and to helping each other.
But I am not sure how to do it. We used to have mutual aid societies, social clubs, etc., in which people supported each other. We still have churches that can offer some help, but we have largely lost the volunteer organizations that would have provided those types of help. How can we restart those kinds of groups to help one another over the rough spots in life? Any ideas?
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