Cover Letter
This has the response to your grant of proposals for the economic, environmental, and social causes. Our trust is engaged in looking after the wellbeing of the aged people of our community. We have been successfully managing an old age home for the past 10 years. We would like to further enhance our services in providing medical aid to the senior citizens of our community.
Our trust proposes to concentrate on the chronic health problems of the aged. We are inclined towards providing healthcare facilities to the aged because issues such as heart attacks, cancer, arthritis, and diabetes demand costly treatments. Moreover, the aged people, being at the last stage of their lives, don’t have much to spare for their treatment. The number of aged people suffering from such ailments is increasing each year. Reports suggest that during the year 2009-2010, 31.5% of aged Americans suffered from heart ailments, 55.5% from hypertension, 8.5% from heart stroke, 21% from arthritis, and 11.5% from asthma. Therefore, we aim to minimize the pain and agony experienced by aged Americans by making available suitable medical aid.
Our trust is well equipped to execute such a project because we already have been in this field for the last couple of years and adding to our strength is the fact that our members include prominent people from the society from different professions such as doctors, lawyers, administrators, engineers, etc. We even have an in-house clinic for catering to any emergencies.
As your good self would agree, this kind of initiative needs a sizeable amount of investment. So we are approaching your good office for financial assistance that would enable us to start this humanitarian project in the Texas State.
Thank you for your valuable time and kindness.
Yours sincerely
MNO
Chairman
Problem statement
It is understood that pain from chronic diseases is unbearable, especially when the patients are aged (more than 65 years of age). In such conditions, the patients need immediate medical attention. Due to the fast life that we have, we don’t have time for our loved ones, especially our parents and other aged people in the community. The aged are left on their own or in nursing homes to tackle their problems with health. Is this what they had expected? They didn’t leave us on our own when we, as children, needed them the most. So why is it that once our parents grow old, we stop taking care of them? The aged people in America and elsewhere are a pitiable lot that needs immediate support and medical aid.
There are other issues about the medical aid for the aged that need to be tackled. At times of immediate needs, lack of suitable transportation is seen as one of the major constraints for transferring patients to the hospitals. There is a lack of proper health insurance. The major hindrance in providing medical aid to the aged is the lack of clinics or hospitals that are specialized in treating the aged. Treating the aged requires specially trained nurses who have the patience to deal with their unresponsiveness. It has been observed and it has become a usual practice of the nurses to administer the basic medicines for elderly people having pain. They are not concerned about the variations of pain or its intensity. In other words, the medications given to elderly people having pain is never customized.
Further, pain assessment in elderly people becomes all the more difficult due to their other health issues and their compassion towards pain-relieving prescriptions. A variety of other problems like the patient’s viewpoint and attitude towards pain and pain-relieving prescriptions, nurses’ insufficient information and understanding of chronic pain, and certain professional hurdles intensify the complications and the role of nurses.
Review of secondary literature
Pain, being a personal experience, is very complicated to prove. In elderly people, where verbal communication has become restricted, the expression of pain becomes very difficult. As such, the pain assessment becomes all the more difficult. In such circumstances, likely, the patient might not get the required treatment and as a result, the patient might not get the expected relief.
During the past couple of years, there has been a major increase in the percentage of elderly people in the population of the world. It is estimated that by the year 2050, the percentage of elderly people (more than 65 years of age) in the world population will be 36.3%, and that of the elderly people who are more than 80 years of age will be tripled. Pain is a very commonly experienced ailment by elderly people. Persistent pain, like chronic pain, affects more than 50% of elderly people residing in the community and 80% of those residing in nursing homes. Elderly people are more prone to chronic pain than the younger population. The pain experienced by elderly people is persistent and is of normal to a rigorous intensity that may continue for several years.
Gauging and categorizing pain is the most crucial aspect of pain management. Even today, the researchers report paucity in pain detection. Several scholars believe that elderly people don’t express their pain verbally. They keep on tolerating their pain. Until recently, there had not been any serious efforts or studies on the topic of pain management in elderly persons. Considering the severity of the issue of pain in the elderly people, The British Pain Society and the British Geriatrics Society, jointly made public some guidelines for managing pain in elderly persons. The main purpose of such guidelines is to educate healthcare professionals about the changes that appear in human beings due to old age. Professor Pat Schofield believes that elderly people hesitate to report their pain and even if they report it, the healthcare professionals are not able to apply the pain management techniques efficiently.
There have been several serious legal cases against nurses who have neglected to treat elderly patients having pain. Certain guidelines clearly state the instances where adult abuse is committed. There may be various kinds of elderly abuse such as, bodily abuse, overlook, or a lack of care that amounts to bodily harm, pain, or mental torture of elderly people. Some scholars believe that incompetence in treating pain or under-treatment might also be categorized as elderly abuse.
The solution to the problem
The solution to such problems lies in providing proper healthcare facilities to the aged people. Providing healthcare services is a vast term that includes various steps and measures that have to be taken. As an initial step towards starting the project, it is proposed that community resource mapping will be conducted. On average, 40 resources will be spotted in every community. The surveyors, from among society, will gather the required data from various families. Such data will be compiled and used as a resource index by way of a website. A mapping, targeting the nurses, will also be conducted. Nurses are also an important part of this project because ultimately, they are the ones who will be responsible for administering proper medication according to the pain management guidelines. By the data, the required training will be provided to the nurses. In addition to the awareness about our responsibilities towards the aged people, the training will also include information about the various acts of the aged people.
Since the lack of proper transportation is considered as one of the major hindrances in providing proper and immediate medical aid to the aged people, it is proposed that a separate department will be created for this purpose. Depending on the data, a certain number of ambulances shall be made available. A unique telephone number will be assigned to the ambulance service so that anyone will be able to call for assistance anytime. This particular telephone number shall be suitably publicized through various media.
It is also proposed to appoint specialized doctors and nurses for our in-house clinic. This will enable us to take care of aged patients who cannot afford the costly treatments of chronic diseases. An ambulance will be ready 24 X 7 to bring in emergency cases.
Necessary equipment required to treat emergency patients will also be arranged by the trust so that immediate first aid may be provided and the patients may experience some relief by the time they are transported to the proper healthcare institution.
All the information about the community mapping, available healthcare facilities, and other details will be made accessible to people by installing computers at various hospitals and other healthcare facilities where people will be able to access the details.
Budgetary details
The project director will be responsible for maintaining the budgetary requirements, hiring people, marketing the venture, preparing news articles, addressing the audience, arranging training schedules, organizing the various reports, and other things that might be required from time to time. Other staff members will perform their respective allocated duties with complete dedication.
The remuneration for employees will be as follows:
Table 1: Salaries.
In addition to the salaries, other expenses (for two years) are as under:
Table 2: Other expenses.
The total expenses amount to the US $857,100. This is the amount that is being requested as grant aid to enable us to initiate this important project. Other recurring and maintenance expenses are proposed to be covered by way of donations from other charitable organizations and individuals. This project will be executed by the ‘National Public Charitable Trust’ (NPCT). NPCT is a charitable organization engaged in the resurgence of the aged people. NPCT has, in the past, made its presence felt in many developing countries. The trust has effectively executed various development ventures based on grants.
Evaluation
There is a dire need for healthcare facilities for the aged people in Texas State. Considering the incessant increase in the population of the aged people, it is eminent that such needs will keep on increasing in the coming years. The recent increase in suicidal deaths in America is a clear indication that the aged are dissatisfied with their lives. The major factor responsible for such dissatisfactions is pain from chronic ailments. So if proper and timely medical aid is provided to the aged patients, the suicidal deaths of our elders can be reduced substantially.
Our proposal aims at minimizing the suffering of aged people by providing them with the required treatment at the right time. We think that this endeavor of ours will contribute towards a healthy future in American society. We request your good self to kindly consider our proposal with a view of sympathy and respect towards the elderly people. Thank you.