Lest their evenings should be dark

Anonagenarian, on recovery from a prolonged illness, wished he had chosen euthanasia while in the hospital. Reason: Lack of domestic care. Paying through the nose, he had engaged a male home nurse. No spark of mercy “disfigured” the nurse’s face, but fire burned within, with liberal curses exploding within the poor soul’s hearing. Rapid strides in medical science have enormously spiked human longevity, unleashing, paradoxically, problems aplenty. Medical attention, ideally, should be two-phased — in the hospital and outside it. In some advanced countries, hospital care extends to home.

The world over, changes in familial set-up have not merely been from joint to nuclear. The nuclear have now become two-member units — the aged, ailing man and the aged ailing woman, with the young hunting for fresh woods and pastures anew. If one of the two falls, the other silently suffers — taking care of oneself and caring for the other.

Government instrumentalities have limitations, funds constraints being the toughest. Individuals and corporate entities have to step in, in a big way. There should be arrangements for pre-job training and supply of competent hands. Intake should be after rigorous tests of aptitudes, inclinations and sensibilities of the candidates. Care-giving is not just a body-wash, changing clothes and bed-making, it is about connecting with the minds and hearts of the ones who lean on them. Body pain is bearable, that of the mind, not. Let us strive to ensure that our elders — infirm, immobile, bed-ridden — are not, as long as they breathe, driven to toying with the euthanasia option. Let there be care in the hospital as well as outside.

■ The reader is a writer based in India.