Elderly Auctioned Off Like Cattle To Lowest Bidder
The Daily Mail
Old people auctioned off to care homes on the internet: Anger over 'cattle markets for grannies'
The elderly and disabled are being ‘put up for auction’ by local councils on ‘eBay-style’ websites, with care firms then bidding to offer them a bed.
At least a dozen local authorities are listing vulnerable people’s details – including their age and what care and medication they need – before inviting bids from care homes in the area.
The bidding is sometimes open for only a few hours, at other times it can last for two or three days. The cheapest offer often wins.
Critics last night said the system was akin to ‘auctioning your granny’ and a ‘cattle market’, saying sensitive decisions about an elderly resident’s final years are being made by a computer programme that is only interested in costs.
It also means the patient or their family often does not see the care home, and that those running the home do not see the patient before they arrive.
Councils say quality is the first consideration, but figures obtained under a Freedom of Information request show 92 per cent of care packages commissioned on the system over a six-month period were awarded to the bidder with the lowest price, BBC 5 Live revealed.
Ros Altmann, a Government adviser and independent expert on care for the elderly, said: ‘These eBay-style sites highlight the funding crisis for elderly care. It is awful. The idea of bidding for a person is just uncivilised. These are not parcels, they are people.’
Janet Morrison, chief executive of the charity Independent Age, said: ‘Do we really want to treat older people as a “product” to be bought and sold this way?
Radio 5 Live also found that in some cases in Birmingham elderly people were being sent to homes which won the online auction despite being ‘zero-rated’ by the council on its own 0-100 scale of care quality – where scores under 60 are ‘poor’.
Mike Gimson, chairman of Moundsley Healthcare Group, said: ‘It’s an absolute disgrace what is going on in Birmingham. It is more like Hereford cattle market than it is a caring service for the elderly.’
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(Death panel auctions for the elderly online in England by counties trying to save money and putting the old folks out to pasture to fend for themselves.
This is what the "affordable" care act ie obamacare is going to do in America in the near future also. Obamacare was modeled after the, give em a pill, tell em to go home and die, type of patient "care" in England. A elderly person becomes a product to be auctioned off like they are cattle.
Auctioning your granny will be coming to your local county in America soon.
Care packages for grandpa via the auction stump will be what future retired people will have to look forward to via medicare and obamacare.) Story Reports
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