How we treat our elderly worse than child killers
Moors murderer Ian Brady was jailed for life more than half a century ago. For 32 years before his death, the serial child killer was detained not in a prison, but — after being diagnosed as a psychopath — at high-security Ashworth psychiatric hospital.
The inquest this week heard that Brady was hostile towards hospital staff throughout his time at Ashworth and that he displayed ‘demanding and entitled behaviour’.
Dr Noir Thomas, a consultant psychiatrist at Ashworth, said Brady’s detention was ‘largely marked by opposition to his care and treatment, allegations of brutality, and serial complaints’.
Brady claimed to be on hunger strike but was secretly eating and would repeatedly pull the feeding tube out of his body, forcing nurses to reinsert it. Yet hospital staff — who have described him as an exceptionally difficult patient — were meticulous in their care, treating him for severe lung disease, recurrent chest and urinary infections, an enlarged prostate and cataracts.
The result of all this medical attention — costing millions over the decades — is that Brady died aged 79 of natural causes, a dignity denied the five children he and Myra Hindley tortured and killed in the sixties.
Compare the attention devoted to this monster to the heartless way we treat those who genuinely deserve care in the last years of their lives. Yesterday’s revelations about Brady came in the week the Mail exposed once again the shocking level of the crisis in care for the elderly in this country.
Inspectors are called out to deal with four elderly care complaints every day south of the Border, and enforcement actions against care homes and home helps have risen by a shocking 68 per cent in 12 months.
The elderly and defenceless are left without food or water and are abused and neglected. In one home, the frail were not even bathed or showered for three weeks.
Fifty care firms in England were fined and four taken to court in 2016/17 after complaints about unsafe care, abuse and not treating people with dignity. More than 100 operators were forced to close, while four out of ten homes failed Care Quality Commission inspections.
What a terrible indictment of our society. Decent people who have contributed to this country throughout their lives are all too often condemned to sad, undignified deaths in institutions which treat them worse than mass murderers.