ABANDONING THOSE IN GREATEST NEED
Thousands of Gold Coasters in aged care or registered with the NDIS are left trying to understand why their lives matter less than others
THE focus of Covid-19 is about to shift to our youth as they return to school. Lost in all of this will be our disabled and elderly. We need to help them now, through the pandemic’s next phase.
Why you might ask? Because they are most vulnerable among us, and our city has more older residents and those needing help than the rest of Queensland.
As of 2019 there are more than 100,000 residents aged 65 years and over on the Gold Coast. A fifth of the city’s total population will be elderly by 2041.
These are not all retirees living in luxury apartments.
By 2036 almost a quarter of the Gold Coast will be living with a disability, or 191,954 people.
So when did we decide it was OK for disabled and elderly people to die, to be a daily Covid statistic?
Months in lockdown, no travel, no going out, businesses in turmoil – we are told by governments that this was supposedly to keep the most vulnerable in our society safe.
Yet now the dozens of
So when did we decide it was okay for disabled and elderly people to die, to be a daily Covid statistic?
deaths each week are “inevitable”.
Here’s the thing. Early on in the pandemic my grandparents were told by their doctor Covid-19 would be their death sentence.
Both approaching 90, they sacrificed critical time with their seven children, 17 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren to outlast a pandemic.
Both of them spent most of their lives running a farm and raising their family – this is the time they’re supposed to get something back for that.
They are supposed to be looked after.
If they died now, their deaths would be deemed a necessary sacrifice. Unavoidable. The price of keeping the economy afloat. Of “getting back to normal”, opening up the borders.
If they died now, their deaths would be met with: “What pre-existing conditions did they have?”
Two years into the pandemic thousands of Gold Coasters in aged care or registered with the NDIS are left trying to understand why their lives matter less, why
their deaths are more insignificant than younger or healthier people.
Already more than 30 people have died this week (as of January 26), all aged over 60 years old.
Doctors are now forced to plead for a “community effort” as the city’s Omicron wave approaches its peak.
Gold Coast Health’s Director of Infectious Diseases Dr Kylie Alcorn said: “We’re having a significant amount of people coming in with just severe fatigue, particularly if they’re frail.
“Fatigue to the point where they wouldn’t be able to walk across the room to go to the toilet. And
that’s lasting for days.
“I don’t know how to get this message through, but if an anti-vaxxer were to say, ‘I don’t have comorbidities, I’m going to be fine’, my problem with that is, you are increasing the chance of it spreading to someone who does have comorbidities and who is vaccinated.
“I really struggle when people come up with that argument, because in the sense of community spirit, and all of us being human beings, and living together, I would hope people don’t see it that way.”
It’s now become a controversial take to say I don’t want anyone to die
from Covid-19.
Whether they’re old, whether they’re disabled, even if they’re unvaccinated. Covid is a deadly, terrifying, painful disease and I don’t think any person should have to suffer from it.
No-one’s family should have to mourn them for the sake of someone else’s night out.
I understand the focus on the school gate – our kids need to get vaccinated and they need to get back into their classrooms.
But there is an entire generation and an entire minority group being left behind in the rush to open the floodgates.