Extreme Outsourcing - Elders

Just about everyone knows the frustration of trying to get answers from customer service located in India or parts unknown. And many are the woes of people whose jobs have been transferred overseas. Now, eldercare is being outsourced too.

On the edge of collapse from caring for his aged and ill parents 24/7 for three years on his own and unable to find a nursing home in Florida that would not bankrupt the family, Steve Herzfeld “outsourced” his parents’ care by moving with them to Pondicherry, India.

“His 89-year-old mother, Frances, who suffers from advanced Parkinson’s disease, now receives daily massages, physical therapy and 24-hour help getting to the bathroom, all for about $15 a day. His father, Ernest, 93, an Alzheimer’s patient, has a full-time personal assistant and a cook who has won him over to a vegetarian diet healthful enough that he no longer needs cholesterol medication.

“Best of all, the plentiful drugs the couple require cost less than 20 percent of what they do at home, and salaries for their six-person staff are so low that the pair now bank $1,000 of their $3,000 Social Security payment.”

- The Seattle Times via Chicago Tribune, 3 August 2007

[ASIDE: A question that has puzzled me for a long time is how drugs in other countries can cost so much less than in the United States. Brand-name or generic, they are manufactured by the same pharmaceutical companies as drugs in the U.S.]

The $2000 monthly cost to Herzfeld and his parents covers food, rent, utilities, medications, phone and staff. The story notes that there are few trained geriatricians in India, but that is true in the U.S. too which has fewer than 9,000 with the number dropping every year.

“Herzfeld’s mother has a daily hour-long session with a physical therapist, who flexes her stiff legs and gets up on her feet briefly with a walker. A nurse, on duty all day, braids flowers into the old woman’s gray hair, massages her legs and arms, holds her hand while she watches television and feeds her meals.

“A massage therapist gives both of the aged Americans a daily full-body massage, and a cook fixes them simple Indian meals.

“Ernest spends much of the day watching cable television in an overstuffed chair, reading a couple of local English-language papers. He sometimes catches a rickshaw to the beach or botanic gardens with his aide or his son.”

- The Seattle Times via Chicago Tribune, 3 August 2007

The family keeps in touch with friends and relatives in the U.S. with email and internet videophone.

A week ago, I reported on my recent visit to a retirement community that includes in the price assisted living and full-time nursing should they, in time, become necessary. It was the first of what will be an ongoing series at TGB on retirement living choices, but in making a list of possibilities to research, India did not cross my mind.

The costs of long-term care in the U.S. are not going to get any cheaper in coming years and it is doubtful there are affordable choices in the U.S. that can compare to living in one’s own home with a full-time staff. The only downside I can see to the India alternative is distance from family.

What do you think?

(Hat tip to Molly who blogs at Life on Tiger Mountain.)

[At The Elder Storytelling Place today, William Weatherstone tells how he learned the joys of the open road at age 14 in My Trucking Career: In the Beginning.]