Shame on us for neglecting aged
MAYBE it’s me getting older, grey and thinking I’m a bit closer to that great photographic darkroom in the sky.
I might be just sooking because of my busted shoulder, but it’s got me thinking about getting on in years.
Our population is ageing, our elderly are living longer, but something’s not right.
So many people who should be living out the winter of their lives with respect and dignity, with loved ones around them, just aren’t doing so.
Once upon a time, we used to respect the elderly. You’d give up your seat for them on buses and trains. You’d smile and say, “Hi”, let them go through doors ahead of you. You wouldn’t swear around them.
These days, it seems that’s just disappeared. We’ve lost our way — institutionally and individually.
Why don’t we better use the grey army of experience in our workforce? Instead, we’re making them redundant.
There’s billions of dollars in experience in their brains and we’re letting it waste away.
We’ll take them as volunteers, happily exploit their goodwill, but bugger paying them for anything. How dumb is that?
So many people want to work and we’re just telling them get knotted, locking them up in a world of boredom, often with a lack of mobility.
Just getting your dear old mum into a nursing home these days is going to cost like half a million bucks. And there’s no guarantee they’ll be treated all that brilliantly.
I read in the Addy’s letters page that Geelong council is suspending high-level home care packages that help the elderly live independently at home.
Under national aged care reforms, increasing emphasis is placed on community provision as the preferred option to residential care.
But rather than trying this, the city is backtracking — at a time when demand for such services is increasing.
And we’re always hearing about oldies being abused — assaulted on the streets, soft targets in their homes for brutal criminals, soft touches for doorknocking rip-off artists and telephone scammers.
Too often, though, they’re just alone. Too often, they don’t see anyone from one day to the next. No relatives, no neighbours.
Their kids have moved away. They don’t see their grandkids or nieces and nephews. Neighbours are too busy to keep an eye on them. Many don’t have computers or know how to use them. Why don’t we care more? It’s important we do, even if only for our own self-interest when we get older. Because what goes around will come around if we don’t get smarter.
I read the other day about a special squad in Japan that cleans up after elderly people discovered dead in their homes. Is that what we’re going to need?
What about all the elderly stuck in their homes without airconditioning the other week when temperatures hit 40C-plus?
We have clueless politicians closing power stations for wellheeled urban greenies while our most vulnerable are at risk. Not to mention destroying regional economies. Absolutely shameful. There’s a meme I reckon captures it perfectly. It shows an old soldier wearing his medals with the caption: “If we knew you were going to throw away all we’d fought for, perhaps we needn’t have bothered.”
Seriously, we hear bleeding hearts talking about how they’re trying to fix their world for their grandkids, how the last generation messed everything up.
They’re not doing anything for their grandkids, they’re doing it for their own self-righteous deluded selves.
Our society has never been more affluent or better educated, it’s never been healthier, never lived as long, been better connected or more informed. But I reckon it’s also never been more confused about its priorities.
So many people worry about their pet causes.
Where’s the outrage about caring for our elderly? Where are the social media warriors who’ve forgotten about the people who raised them, sacrificed, scrimped, saved and worked their knuckles to the bone for them?
They’re probably off on their bleeding-heart, save-the-planet campaigns. I wish they’d start by trying to save the people in their own little part of the planet.