B.C. seniors advocate studies how elder abuse is reported

The B.C. seniors advocate has launched an in-depth study of elder abuse with the goal of releasing a report with recommendations next year.

Isobel Mackenzie said Thursday that her office has collected data on elder abuse for the past five years, but it’s become clear to her that the information isn’t meaningful because there no standardized way for anyone who sees elder abuse to report it.

Mackenzie said her Office of the Seniors Advocate in Victoria is reviewing provincial legislation and has started on a consultation process as part of its “systemic review” of elder abuse.

“We look to a report coming out later in 2020 with some recommendations on how we can better gather information and better inform the public and start to have some reliable information and some confidence that we are providing a robust system for reporting and tracking and dealing with elder abuse,” she said.

“It is an issue that not only seniors feel passionately about, the public at large does as well.”

Mackenzie made the comments during the release of Monitoring Seniors Services 2019, her annual report on assessing such services for seniors as health care, housing, transportation and income.

A total of 1,626 cases of abuse, neglect and self-neglect were reported in 2018 to provincial agencies. However, the report said the figure should be “interpreted with caution because it is incomplete, inconsistently reported and prone to subjective bias due to lack of reporting criteria.”

Mackenzie said the report also found that by far the main form of transportation for seniors remains private vehicles. She said 78 per cent of people aged 65 have a driver’s licence, an increase of four per cent, which matches the four per cent increase to 912,725 in the total number of seniors in B.C.

Of the 72,000 driver fitness cases in 2018 for those 80 years of age and older, about 90 per cent were successfully completed in the doctor’s office, she said.

“People who get the notice when they reach 80, and every two years thereafter, to go to the doctor’s office, overwhelmingly are going to come out with no further testing required,” she said. “The message I want to get out to seniors is that if you think you’re able to drive, you probably are.”