Zeinat Nasser assists her mother, Nahla Nasser
How many senior citizens have died this year due to the lack of help? Many elders have died of heart disease, cancer, heart attacks, and strokes. Senior citizens are dying about every minute and their death rate went up to 800,000 elders per year just in the United States according to consumer.healthday.com. Senior citizens are suffering and dying and we can do so many things to help them.
Senior citizens spend $18,424 on personal health care according to seniorliving.org. They don’t have jobs and some elders don’t even have kids to rely on. Many elders choose to not even get health care because of this amount of money. Senior citizens get put into very serious situations so they need health care.
A serious situation is when the seniors fall. Many seniors get broken bones and surgery just because they fall. Elders have very sensitive bones which cause these injuries. Seniors also have a risk of getting the flu and with no health care, they will be suffering on their own with no one to help!
Nahla Nasser, 85 years old
Nahla Nasser is a Dearborn resident senior citizen struggling to walk, hear, and see. She is 85 years old and is struggling to do almost everything. For the interview question on how her family helps her, she responded with the answer, “It takes at least three members of my family just to help me get out of bed in the morning and I also struggle just to use the bathroom.”
Another question that she did not mind answering was how many times has she fallen and couldn’t get up, she slowly thought, then responded with a shocking answer: at least two times a month. “I was screaming, crying and begging anyone for help hoping I would live to see another day,” she said. This just goes to show how much she needs help every day in her life.
One of the most important members in Nahla Nasser’s family is her daughter Zeinat Nasser, a Dearborn finance worker, 37. “We had to gather all the money possible from my sisters and brothers just to provide a wheelchair that an insurance company should cover” but didn’t, she said.
Fadia Agemy, another Dearborn resident senior citizen, struggles with back pain and vision problems. She feels like everything in her life has been slowed down and taken away from her ever since her health began to decline. She is at the age of 63 and is just starting to notice these problems.
63 year old Fadia Agemy has noticed a decline in her health.
Also, she has just become a new senior citizen and already has to deal with problems that take away advantages. Fadia’s answer to the question about why senior’s refuse to get help is, “It is because we think we can do stuff on our own but we really don’t know how much help that we need because it makes us feel weak.”
She also has some thoughts about whether retirement homes are useful for seniors. “Retirement homes are very useful and helpful but it depends on the specific place,” she said.
RN Sahar Taleb speaks about helping the elderly
Another very important person in Fadia Agemy’s life and practically every other senior citizens life in Dearborn is Registered Nurse Sahar Taleb. She is very experienced with how senior’s struggle and how it affects them. At 23, she is visiting her aunt to try to help her as much as possible. “Seniors should get nurses or someone else to help them with medical issues because they really can’t do much themselves,” she said.
Seniors will have an increased risk of dying alone, but many people are trying to help the seniors as much as possible.
Story By: Ali Osman
Unis Middle School Journalism