Student living in a retirement home

Resident of an old people's home, as a student

The project “Studentisches Wohnen im Altersheim” was launched in 2019 in the former Klus Park and Rebwies retirement centres. The aim of the project is to bring young people and older people into contact with each other and to let them learn from each other. The students live cheaply in the health centres and provide neighbourly assistance in return. We can support the residents with activities, assistance and excursions.

Since September 2021, I have been living in the Gesundheitszentrum für das Alter Bürgerasyl-Pfrundhaus and may participate in this project.

My path to the project

I already had experience with everyday life in old people’s homes, as I had completed a social internship at the Residenz-au-Lac in Biel during my school years. In addition, nursing assistant training was part of my recruit school, where I was able to complete a nursing internship at the Oeschberg. After my recruit school, I also worked in the hospital.

My experience in nursing and in dealing with older people led me to apply for the project “Studentisches Wohnen im Gesundheitszentrum”. I am convinced that the cooperation of young and old is an enrichment for both sides.

My activities

Our goal is not to relieve care or activation. Our activities begin where the compulsory tasks of care and activation end. We organise events such as film and game evenings and initiate larger discussion groups. (As a side note: films older than 1950 are usually well received.) One special task I take on is looking after a dog whose owner* is no longer able to look after it completely due to old age.

We also go on regular outings with individual residents. We take the tram, explore former residential areas or visit museums. One resident shows me a new corner of Zurich every month. Thanks to her (and a nurse), I found access to the opera, for example, and learn about the history of Zurich, but I also realised that the performances at the Schauspielhaus, as well as the modern art at Haus Konstruktiv, are not really to my liking.

We also support the residents with everyday tasks, such as accompanying them to the doctor, shopping or simply listening to them.

My experiences

I am often asked if there are challenges to living in a retirement home. Of course there are, although by challenges I mean situations from which I have learned a lot and am still learning.

Some of the challenges are similar to those faced by my “young” environment as well. For example, mental health is an issue for young and old. In old people’s homes there are many people with dementia, Alzheimer’s or other mental illnesses. These illnesses can be very stressful for the residents and their relatives.

But there are also issues that I would not otherwise be so directly confronted with. Dealing with death in particular is different in old people’s homes than with my colleagues at university.

Two specific associations that I often talk about are Exit and Dignitas. I support the residents in paying their membership fees and filling out forms. Inevitably, we also talk about suicide. Assisted suicide is a perfectly normal topic in old age. Since 2001, assisted suicide organisations such as Exit or Dignitas have been allowed in and out of the 40 public retirement and nursing centres in Zurich. Every year, 5 to 15 people die with assisted suicide, and a total of 3500 residents live in the centres. ¹

Palliative medicine affirms life and accepts dying as a normal process. It does not want to hasten or delay death. The goal is to maintain the best possible quality of life until death. However, this also means not taking any life-prolonging measures. ²

“Old people often hardly feel hunger or thirst - they rather suffer from the fact that they are constantly forced to eat and drink in the homes.” Albert Wettstein, former city doctor

Another way to die is death fasting, also called terminal fasting in the jargon. I myself used to play chess regularly with a resident who was over 90 (and I usually lost). When I was on a skiing holiday for a week, she wrote me a goodbye card and when I came back she had died. She had decided to stop eating and drinking. According to Albert Wettstein, the former city doctor of Zurich, good oral hygiene is enough to suppress the remaining feeling of hunger and thirst. For older people this process takes about 10 days, but for younger people it is a long way. ³

It is rather rare in Switzerland for patients to be force-fed via a stomach tube. However, the living will and the recording of the decision is very important. For people with dementia, the path is difficult, because external persons can only with difficulty assess whether the path is an active decision or whether it is rather due to forgetting to eat.

Precisely because I have experienced what an unaccompanied suicide means in my everyday life at a home, I support the “accompanied suicide”.