Too many seniors sentenced to life of solitary confinement

Google the term solitary confinement and you’ll find many profound articles on the disastrous effects it can have — on prisoners. Governments at every level, along with “concerned citizens,” are raising the issue in all media.

There’s another kind of solitary confinement that is equally punishing: that of low-income, isolated seniors.

We live alone. Some have no family and, thanks to attrition, few remaining friends. Our health is failing. Many of us are handicapped. Some of us are caregivers, supporting older parents or partners. Even more have outlived their savings. We spend every one of the days and nights we have left alone. Christmas, birthdays, national holidays unacknowledged and uncelebrated. Alone.

Our government, again at every level, has admitted that this is “cause for concern.” We have been assessed and studied ad nauseam. Papers and scholarly articles have been written. Commissions and focus groups formed.

But nothing changes.

This same government has decreed that solitary confinement — for prisoners — is essentially cruel and unusual punishment” and should be limited to 15 days. We’d be grateful to share that sentence. Currently we are condemned to death. No doubt also alone.

We’ve asked for help. Begged. Pleaded. Demanded. Wept. And, all too often, what is offered is not what we need. “But,” we are assured, “things are changing. Systems are being put in place. Procedures that will make your life more comfortable. Less complicated. Easier to bear.”

Promises are trumpeted. In commercials, brochures and multimedia ads. On podcasts and websites. Personalized letter are mailed, often by politicians whose names we recognize. They are the ones who ignore our letters and emails.

Doctors and hospitals are on-board. Social services and volunteer agencies, too. Surveys are sent out and filled in. Consumer panels are consulted. Results extolled. Year after year after year. All paid for by our taxes. Still nothing changes. Listen to us: End the scattershot approach, treating seniors as if we were isolated islands of need. We are a bloc. A voting bloc. One that is growing exponentially.

Create a central senior registry. One that’s required reading for every senior services agency in every locale.

List all seniors seeking assistance, along with the specific services they require, on this registry.

Stop the duplication of services between agencies. So many are eager to help. Each has its own ideas of what form that help should take. And each assesses every client it serves. This process, which a central registry would obviate, exhausts and frustrates us, and wastes time for the social workers involved.

I have been approached by many agencies over the past few years. Each one assesses me using, as far as I can tell, the same criteria as all the others. Seniors are tired, weak, vulnerable. Our time is short. Constantly asking the same questions from so many different sources, only adds to our exhaustion.

Each agency apparently offers the same services. In an era of increasing specialization, this seems strange to me. When we try to access the services we actually need, all too often they are not available. Waiting lists can be one to two years long. We may not be around when our turn comes! Or the service may have been discontinued, due to lack of funding, staffing or facilities.

The government is supposedly aware of these deficiencies and has purportedly allocated funds to address them. Funds that never, ever seem to reach the frontline workers responsible for actually delivering the services.

Where does the money go? I posed the question to many people while writing this. No one had an answer.

The silver tsunami is a fact. We, the advance guard, are realizing that, in Canada at least, it is currently easier to achieve an assisted death than to receive help in actually living a relatively comfortable life for the rest of our days. Why?