Kirk Douglas, 67, Finds Art Imitates Life of Aged

Actor Kirk Douglas drew a standing-room-only crowd to a congressional hearing on abuse of the elderly Wednesday, telling the Select Committee on Aging, “I want to join your crusade in trying to eradicate this national disgrace.”

Facing a battery of television cameras to the right of the select committee panel, Douglas, 67, dramatically recited a four-page statement, detailing abuses he had heard or read about and encouraging Americans in high schools and colleges to become involved in the situation.

“The problem we struggle with today is a nightmare for tomorrow,” Douglas said. “In Texas last month a man starved his mother to death. He was living in an immaculate room with two well-fed cats.

“He’s out free, because there is no law to prosecute him for the death of his mother. But there is a man serving time in a Texas jail right now--5 1/2 years--for not feeding his dogs. And the dogs didn’t die.”

Douglas said he became interested in the problem when playing the role in an upcoming movie of an elderly man who was abused in a nursing home. Douglas said he researched the problem and found that the “make-believe” abuse he was suffering in the movie “is a hideous, inescapable reality.”

Douglas received a round of applause after his testimony, a rarity on Capitol Hill.

Asked after the hearing if he planned to continue in an advocacy role for the elderly, Douglas replied, “I want to reassess what I can do. I’m about to start another movie with Burt Lancaster. I’m an actor. Within my abilities, I plan to continue to help.”

Other witnesses testified that nurses’ aides, who provide 90% of patient care in nursing homes, make only minimum wages and are poorly trained.

One former nurses’ aide, who did not give her name, testified that she was hired despite having no credentials and that she was given no training. One of her duties was to turn patients in their beds, and she found out later that one woman she had been turning was suffering from bone cancer, and that every time she turned her, she had been breaking her bones.

Douglas said it was “obvious” that more federal funds need to be spent on care of the elderly.