To jerk a knot

By JANET HART LEONARD

From the Hart

“I just want to jerk a knot in someone’s tail.”

Oh, my goodness. Whenever I heard my mother say that she wanted to jerk a knot in someone’s tail, I knew she was angry.

Today I am angry. I want to jerk a knot in someone’s tail.

I’m talking about the legislators who not only refuse pass Senate Bill 405 but refuse to even allow it out of committee to be heard by the Senate.

Shame on all of you.

Money is siphoned out of federal money that is to go to nursing homes to help our elderly and the healthcare workers taking care of them. It is then given to hospitals who own nursing homes, and they then use the money … AT THEIR DISCRETION.

No transparency. NONE.

How is this possible? Ask your legislator.

So, while the hospital CEOs and their board members sit in their cozy palace-like offices, our elderly are suffering in their tiny, cramped rooms and waiting for someone to help them. And they continue to wait.

The voices of the elderly have been shushed by age and dementia and Alzheimer’s. Who will be their advocate? Who will use their voice to help then? Who will get out of their comfy office and fight for their right to live out the end of their lives in acceptable comfort? I’m waiting for a response while the elderly are waiting to die.

While CEOs and their board members are slapping the backs of their lobbyists who are slapping the backs of our legislators, the elderly and the healthcare workers are being slapped in the face.

SB 405 would have opened the secretive accounts hidden in the hospitals. Shouldn’t taxpayers have the right to know where the money is going and who is being served by it? It is our money, after all.

Money that should have been given to nursing homes from the federal government, for the care of the elderly, has been used to fund the projects of the hospital’s powers-that-be. How can they do that? Where there is a lobbyist, a loophole will be found.

While a new, grand, state-of-the-art wing of a hospital bears a plaque with the names of the powers-that-be on it, the names of the elderly who have died while waiting to be sufficiently and properly cared for are engraved on their tombstones.

And so, the bill is now dead for this session and so are many of the elderly whom the money could have saved.

How many more of the elderly must die while waiting to be cared for? How many healthcare workers will leave their jobs because they are just tired and overwhelmed?

The committee chairman said the timing was not right to have the bill heard. TIMING NOT RIGHT??? When is the right time to do the right thing for our elderly and the ones who take care of them? Where is common decency?

Ask your legislators.

Do I feel better after venting? No. I’m still angry. I still want to jerk a knot in someone’s tail. My momma taught me well.

Janet Hart Leonard can be contacted at janethartleonard@gmail.com or followed on Facebook (@janet.hartbaker) or Instagram (@janethartleonard). Visit janethartleonard.com.