A surprise awaited me when recently I and others were given a tour of the Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care (YHC) while attending a conference in Toronto, Canada. Completely unexpected, I was actually touring one of the world’s best geriatric centers, and witnessing an example of the power of one.
The life expectancy of the residents of the YHC’s nursing homes after admission is 7 years, while the provincial average of nursing homes for Ontario, Canada is 2.5 years. Another way of presenting this is that in 2007, 15.8% of YHC’s nursing home residents passed away, as compared to Ontario’s average of 40%. This is even more impressive when considering that the new residents at YHC are on the average more frail and require about 9% more care than the Ontario average because of the longer waiting time for admission. The YHC has the longest waiting list, with all 805 beds occupied and a waiting list of over 2,000 people, and the projected waiting time for a standard bed in their Scarborough centers is about six years. The skin ulcer rate is 3%, while the provincial average is 30%. The use of restraints by residents is 1.2%, while the provincial average is 18.3%. The fall rate of residents is 8.9%, while the provincial average is 12.5%.
Sex Slaves of World War II
One of the most horrific crimes of the World War II period[1] has remained relatively unknown to most Americans, as well as to most people in many other parts of the world, even though more than 63 years have elapsed since the end of World War II. This is the crime of sex slaves, or euphemistically called “comfort women” by the Japanese government. During the WWII period, approximately 400,000 women and young girls (most between the ages of 14 and 18) from China, Korea, Philippines, Netherlands, and other countries (with about 50% being Chinese) were forced to become sex slaves to the Japanese soldiers occupying Korea, China, Burma, Philippines, and other parts of Asia.[2]
Most of these women and girls were kidnapped from their families and shipped to all over the Japanese empire to become sex slaves, and many died or were never united with their families again. Sometimes, these women and girls were tricked to become sex slaves when they thought they were being recruited for other jobs. As sex slaves, they were raped on a daily basis by as many as a dozen or more Japanese soldiers, while being poorly fed and living in extremely harsh conditions. In addition, sometimes they also had to perform other menial tasks during other parts of the day, all without compensation.
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