HEARING - U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging

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she has only 50 percent vision in one eye and the other eye is totally
blind, and we can never leave her alone. In one of her major surgeries,
she slipped off the edge of the bed, and hit the leg that was
amputated, she broke the bone from the knee to the hip in half,
which had to be removed. This was a major surgery that she was
there for at great and enormous cost.
So what my request is is for help in home care nursing, because
the nursing homes in our area are consistently full. When I went
for major shoulder surgery 3 months ago, there was not a bed to be
had in a nursing home in Monroe, so we kept her at home, and I
paid a nurse's aide around-the-clock, 24 hours.
Chairman MFm.CHER. Over the weekend, I just came from visiting
two of my aunts, one of whom is 93 and one is 94. Both are very
alert, both are, in relative terms, very active, and are out and
around. They do not drive a car anymore, but that is about the
only thing they refrain from doing.
Now, tell me about your mother. This all started at 93?
Mrs. FISH. Well, her major.problem was through the amputation
of her leg, and she had several strokes and was incapacitated for a
couple weeks each time, but then improved.
Chairman MELCHER. I understand. But was she up and around?
Mrs. FISH. Yes, definitely, definitely, yes. She went with me everywhere
I went; she was able to go.
Chairman-MELcHERT.Was she-able to read at that ti mie?9 -
Mrs. FIsii. Partly, yes. The eye has deteriorated considerably in
the last 3 years.
Chairman MELCHER. Was she living with you then?
Mrs. FISH. She has been with me for 7 years, since the death of
my father.
Chairman MELCHER. All right. So she has been with you since
she was 90 years old.
Mrs. FISH. Yes.
Chairman MELCHER. And she has been an active person up until
the amputation?
Mrs. FISH. It will be 4 years, yes, up until almost 4 years ago.
Chairman MELCHER. Does she vote?
Mrs. FISH. I do not think so. I do not remember taking her.
Chairman MELCHER. That is the only thing she has given up-all
right. Now, at 93 years of age, with 40,000-some-odd dollars in cash,
she should have been quite secure, along with Medicare.
Mrs. FISH. She would have been, yes. My father did not believe
in hospitalization, and foreign people do not let their children tell
them what to do. Although we tried very hard to take out hospitalization
for them, he refused. And this is where, like you said, I
really would push having people understand that Medicare does
not pay everything; to start younger in life. I would have the reporters
writing consistently about it, urging people to realize thiswhich
my father apparently thought-he died at age 93 and had
been hospitalized only three times in all of his lifetime, at the age
of 93, that was quite a record.
Chairman MELCHER. You are absolutely right on that, that
people should understand very definitely what Medicare will pay
for.