Wednesday 16 December 2009

Grim Viewing

'I shall be like that tree,' predicted Jonathan Swift, pointing to a stag-headed specimen. 'I shall die from the top.' As modern medicine becomes ever more adept at keeping our bodies going, increasing numbers of us can look forward to the same grim fate, and the misnamed 'care' (often no more than a form of warehousing) that goes with it. There was a harrowing programme on TV last night in which the businessman Gerry Robinson looked into what goes on in homes that care for the demented elderly, and it was grim viewing indeed. His uphill struggle to improve matters in one home - recently, to his undisguised amazement, upgraded to 'adequate' - was finally blown out of the water when allegations of sexual offences caused it to be closed down. The sight of the bewildered and terrified residents being wheeled out to die elsewhere was one of the most hauntingly terrible things I have ever seen on TV. What will future generations make of our treatment of the elderly - or indeed of babies and young children, who are similarly regarded as a problem to be farmed out to low-paid 'carers' (those that are allowed to live, that is - the scale of abortion in this country might also appall future generations)? It seems that any activity that involves one human being looking after, caring for another human being is by definition low status and low paid (unless it can be 'professionalised' into respectability). Is this because it is 'women's work'? Or is it just that we live in a society that values getting and spending above all else, regarding the truly important matters of life and death as peripheral - though all of us know that really they are central? If you're lucky enough to be lucid as you near death, will you look back and think Gosh I wish I'd spent more time in the office? And yet, while we are working, we must all entertain the delusion that it matters more than anything else. The result of all that getting and spending is that even the relatively poor among us live at a level of luxury that to past generations would seem beyond the remotest possibility. And yet, in the midst of this unheard-of wealth, we cannot spare enough to care properly for the most vulnerable among us. Swift, by no means a rich man, gave away a third of his earnings to charity, and saved another third to found the St Patrick's Hospital for Imbeciles. As he put it in his own ironic epitaph,
'He gave the little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad.'

12 comments:

  1. Having recovered a bit from the initial fury of that post, a few things come to mind:

    - This is about the Boomers, isn't it? You've got to feel some sympathy. Unlike their grandparents, their parents simply won't die but live on in indefinite senility until the inheritance is spent, so having spent all their money funding their kids through uni they find their retirement mostly consists of nursing.

    - Of course there are some awful care homes and nurseries about, but surely far more good ones where the staff are lovely and the food is better and the rooms warmer and the painkillers more effective and the TVs of a higher definition than has ever been the case in history? Is it really so bleak as one TV prog can suggest?

    - people are less inclined to give 1/3 of their income away when they've already beeen taxed at 20% or 40% or soon 50%, plus NI, council tax, CGT etc....

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  2. I know what will happen to old people in the future, I saw a documentary on it it once, called 'Logan's Run'

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  3. I'm not sure about paying the caring professions more money. It might attract the wrong sort.

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  4. Isn't one of the great mysteries of nursing homes why there aren't more suicides? I wonder whether I'd have the courage and mental clarity to top myself if I was looking at ending my years in such highly unpleasant fashion? Or is life of any sort worth clinging on to?

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  5. When we had to find a Care Home for a codger, we happened across an excellent one run by the Methodists - it had never occurred to me that I might make a pro-Methodist remark, but fair's fair.

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  6. Your anger about this is entirely appropriate. It's one of the important issues over-looked for too long - but old age isn't glamorous enough and 'caring' is an almost invisible profession - except for the recipient. Carers are indeed so badly paid, and for those who make a long-term vocation of caring, it must be galling to feel so undervalued by society. Also there is so little emotional and mental support given for people dealing on a daily basis with the struggle surrounding illness and death. It's absurd to suggest that better pay would attract the wrong sort of person - though I imagine this is written with irony! The fact is 'ageism' is so deeply ingrained in our society that we don't even notice most of the time. Perhaps, as we get older we will revolutionise this! Perhaps we won't have the energy...

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  7. Well said Nige. I couldn't agree more. The vacuousness of so much that is deemed essential and important in modern Western society is depressing beyond belief.

    The individual is king. Unfortunately that also means that caring about others or having a concern for anybody who can't be useful to you right now becomes peripheral.

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  8. Ouch, indeed.

    It's a horrible dilemma, and not one that will be ameliorated by government advertisements intended to "raise awareness" (i.e. harangue)about ageism. You have progressively fragile and needy seniors with vastly extended lifespans and little to do in the expensive care of middle-aged folks raised to see their freedom and individuality as the purpose of life. The "seasons of man" have been altered and no one dares confront the implications and inevitable moral hardening head-on.

    Imagine if instead of extending lifespans at the end, medical science had found a way to prolong infancy by a decade or two. I wouldn't want to work for the child protection authorities.

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  9. Thanks everybody - much wisdom there - and welcome aboard Tricia - stick around...

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  10. Superb post. Especially your perceptive linking of the age problem with the infant day care problem. There is a larger social issue here, buried somewhere in the idea of "You can have it all." Or the reign of the Individual, as noted by Recusant. Repugnant outsourcing is how I call it.

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  11. I've spent the better part of the last four months in a combination acute care facility/nursing home, 18-20 hours a day while my mom has been recovering from a severe stroke. It seemed awful, those first days. What I came to realize is that for the most part, the staff loved and cared for the patients, but had so many of them that they just had enough time to care for their basic needs and nothing more. I don't think it's necessarily about paying them more (tho they certainly deserve it) but about having more staff, with training and mentoring by the more experienced workers.

    And to be fair, most families just drop off their loved ones and come for the occasional visit. Family members, as busy as their lives may be, need to be a larger part of the care. Nurses would tell me that some of the patients would get only one or two visits a year from their families. It boggles the mind...

    All that being said, we were lucky enough that Mom has recovered enough to come home and we will continue her care (with help) here in her own house, and that is a much, much better place to be.

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