What effect will mergers and acquisitions have on the quality of care Essay

What effect will mergers and acquisitions have on the quality of care in the UK care home industry - Essay Example Some businesses that may command a significant amount of profit may become unprofitable in the long run and the vice versa can also hold true. In the UK, there has been a significant difference in the way in which the fortunes of care homes have changed in response to market demands and pressures. With the turn of the new millennium, business activities that involve mergers and acquisitions have increased a lot. Usually it is seen that mergers and acquisitions are reported between companies that have similar operational objectives or between companies that have very diverse interests. Today a similar trend is being witnessed in the case of care home businesses also. Care home businesses are recently being acquired by real-estate companies or those which have a similar line of business operations. With the thinning out of the boundaries between assisted living and luxurious living, care homes have begun to cater to the need of the wealthy who need a facility that would give proper care, to lodge their elders. Today care homes are witnessing a change in focus that is different from what it used to be in the past. While care homes catered exclusively to the sick and convalescing in the olden days, today, the same business caters to the need of wealthy clients who need to spend t heir time in a facility that provides medical as well as luxury needs. When comparing mergers a few years before and the mergers that are happening now, apparently there is a perceptible change in pattern. For e.g. in the olden days, mergers or acquisitions mostly happened when a company was declared sick. Such companies could not exist on their own. Similarly, mergers were also executed to supplement the facilities of an existing company. Today, however, the management perceptions have changed and mergers happen between companies that are financially very sound, and are operating profitably. This phenomenon indicates that mergers can also happen to ensure

Eugene Smith Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Eugene Smith - Essay Example He began taking photographs in 1932 and early subjects included sports, aviation and the Dust Bowl. After studying at Notre Dame University for a year he joined the staff of Newsweek. In 1938 Smith became a freelance photographer working for Life Magazine, Collier's Weekly and the New York Times. In 1942 Smith became a war correspondent and spent most of the next three years covering the Pacific War. His most dramatic photographs were taken during the invasion of Okinawa in April 1945. On 23rd May Smith was seriously wounded by a Japanese shell fragment. He was taking a photograph at the time and the metal passed through his left hand before hitting the face. Smith was forced to return to the United States and he had to endure two years of hospitalization and plastic surgery. In 1947 Smith joined Life Magazine and over the next seven years produced a series of photo-essays that established him as the world's most important photojournalist. These included essays entitled: Country Doct or, Hard Times on Broadway, Spanish Village, Southern Midwife and Man of Mercy. Granted a Guggenheim Fellowship (1956-57), Smith began a massive picture essay of Pittsburgh. Smith's last great photo-essay, Minamata (1975), deals with the residents of a Japanese fishing village who suffered poisoning and gross disfigurement from the mercury wastes of a nearby chemical company. While photographing this project he was severely beaten by several local factory workers who were opposed to the revelations that his camera exposed. An extensive collection of his work was acquired by the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in 1976. Smith severed his ties with Life again over the way in which the magazine used his photos of Albert Schweitzer. Starting from his project to document Pittsburgh, he began a series of book-length photo essays in which he strove for complete control of his subject matter. This was followed by another large project on New York (1958-59). Smith also taught photojournalism at New York's New School for Social Research and was president of the American Society of Magazine Photographers. Complications from his consumption of drugs and alcohol led to a massive stroke, from which Smith died in 1978. Today, Smith's legacy lives on through the W. Eugene Smith Fund to promote "humanistic photography," which has since 1980 awarded photographers for exceptional accomplishments in the field. Of him, he says: "I am an idealist. I often feel I would like to be an artist in an ivory tower. Yet it is imperative that I speak to people, so I must desert that ivory tower. To do this, I am a journalist-a photojournalist. But I am always torn between the attitude of the journalist, who is a recorder of facts, and the artist, who is often necessarily at odds with the facts. My principle concern is for honesty, above all honesty with myself..." His Works and Analysis: "A Walk to Paradise Garden", 1946 Smith's war wounds cost him two painful years of hospitalization and plastic surgery. During these years he took no pictures and whether he would ever be able to return to photography was doubtful. Then one day, during his period of convalescence, Smith took a walk with his two children and even though it was still intensely painful for him to operate a camera, came back with one of the