I had to say goodbye to a friend yesterday. Medicine is not, of course an exact science, but two doctors confirmed my own suspicion that I am unlikely to see this person alive again.
This is not distressing: the person in question has lived a long life and has not enjoyed the best of health towards the end of it. Despite that they declared themselves not unhappy with their current situation, their care and most especially the quality of their food not long ago. Priorities were still being assessed and decisions being made even as the options available reduced as age advanced. That is what makes me think that at least for this friend end of life care has been good enough to be part of a life well lived. That helps.
But will that be possible in the future? Or is the end of an era? With social care collapsing, many old people's homes facing their own financial end and the NHS under-funded, is it really possible to imagine those who have to face my friend's last journey in the future doing so with such apparent satisfaction that all had been done appropriately? I find it difficult to think so.
And in many ways that's harder to face than the seemingly imminent, and peaceful, prospect of losing a friend. Death is inevitable. Making it harder than it need be, which seems to be the likely option available at this election, is not. My wish for those who will follow my friend is that they too might think that they had been cared for to the end.
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It’s not death that scares but the process of dying, losing control over what little remains of life, allowing others to make our final decisions for us.
That it could be under a government without an ounce of care, morality or empathy is truly terrifying. At 71 and in poor health I have to say I’m glad I live in Scotland, but I do fear for my rUK brethren.
Thanks for this sensitive piece, campaigning and courage Richard, it’s much appreciated.
You are right to raise this point.
Old age and ill health statistically go hand in hand. Our elder folk are abused by modern politics – relied on to get certain parties in power that hold back progressive change but then told that they are burden on society. It’s sickening.
People are not here to be thrown away after they have contributed to society.
My greater fear however is that human beings are being thrown away at a much younger age now and in the future by a mix of technology and bone headed stupid social and fiscal policy by the likes of you know who.
I agree that elder folk have a lot of responsibility for modern politics but I’m not sure they are abused. In effect they seem to be responsible for the government we have. Surely they can see that ‘their’ government is running down health and social care. Do they think that they’ll get out just before it all goes wrong? And to quote PSR do they not see that ” human beings are being thrown away at a much younger age now”?
It ties in with a comment on ProgressivePulse http://www.progressivepulse.org/uncategorized/the-old-peoples-home/comment-page-1/#comment-117 which seems to imply that Andrew Dickie’s mutuality principle is now strange to many older people in society. Perhaps that also helps to explain Brexit.
So the old have got it wrong and the young don’t vote. Not a happy prospect.
Radio 4s ‘You and Yours’ reported that care home fees cost £30,000 a year. The family home is being sold to cover that cost. Surely voters in Tory heartlands must be questioning what is going on when even buying your own home is no longer a secure investment.
My Mum lived in West Wiltshire near Bath. Her home was seen as financial security to be handed to her family. That home has been sold to pay for residential and now nursing care. There will be no money left within the next two years. Basically my siblings and I feel we have been robbed. It’s as if somebody has got into our bank accounts and stollen a very large quantity of money. There is nobody to report this theft to because what has happened is legal.
Basically the whole home ownership housing model was just a dream. It is already the end of an era. The future is very frightening particularly when our politicians seem so unwilling to realise everything has changed.
Might I ask who you think shoukd pay so that you inherit your parent’s house?
Presuming you think care has a cost why do you think someone else should pay for it so that you might gain?
Don’t you think it possible that you might be the one wishing to commit the robbery?
Declaration: my father is in a care home, maybe at cost to me and my siblings, except that I do not assume I have any right to his property and have no idea if it’s his intention that I should, and have never asked and have no intention of doing so. My concern is his well being
My mother is in a care home & the deal is that on her death the balance between state pension etc and the cost of care will be met by myself and my sister. My sister (a tory-supporter) is in hand wringing mode as costs escalate. For myself, I really could not give a stuff – as long as mother is well cared for 9which she is) then I just don’t care. I do not feel as if I have been “robbed” – my mother gave things to my sister and I on which you cannot place a value (education, genetically very robust bodies, brains, etc). I see a rising selfishness is UK society – & I’m sorry to say your post confirms what I see.
Here is a suggestion – at the next election vote anything but tory.
The throwing away of life opportunity of the young is part of this scenario-all based on the notion that if you don’t financialise yourself and bow down before the ‘primacy of money’ you are a non, or lesser person.
My mother is now 85 with limited assets, I fear for what will happening the coming years. But fear is the game; if you have made money out of socially useless speculation that has probably damaged society (Michael Fallon and his Lobo loan dealing Equity business) you will be cared for in comfort in your years of frailty. If you have been a productive citizen of healp and support to people in your community but have no assets, you will struggle to get help in a begrudging society.
We see the evil of this immediately but because we have been taught that money is greater than life then we forget that life is something. fear is the neo-liberal project that turns people into scurrying ants, dashing around, grubbing for crumbs lest they be abandoned.
MayP
All I can say is that the elderly are still portrayed as a burden to those of us who are working and we are told over and over again that we cannot afford to look after them.
This is what I mean by abuse. The elderly must be aware of being spoken about like this. How must they feel?
Again, politicians have become expert at stratifying society, focussing on differences between the strata and then using those differences to put people at odds with each other.
And there we have it. The cunning of unreason.
As for the rest of that comment you link I wholly wish to associate myself with it.
I have managed a care home.
Self-funders in care homes, like Bernard Little’s mother, subsidise those without assets. Live on benefits all your life, even spend most of it in gaol, and the state will pick up the tab for your care in old age – except that the state will not pay the full rate (only a notional rate), so the fees of self-funders are ramped up to cover the shortfall. I aimed to have at least 60-70% self-funders. And those self-funders were often aggrieved that they had paid redistributive taxes all their lives, and then had to subsidise other residents by paying higher fees for their own care. Basically, the state should pay the going rate.
The costs that care homes must cover are increased hugely by the extraordinary levels of regulation. Some of it is necessary; but much of it isn’t. For example, if you need to replace a pane of glass in an internal door in a care home, the guidance extends to 50+ pages – which the contractor has to read, of course, and at a cost. And if you don’t comply with the guidance, the CQC will mark you down at your next inspection.
So you’d rather we didn’t have regulation that protected people (the regulation will say use safety glass: let’s be candid, and sill be the same as is most institutions) and those who could not save (and most simply can’t) go the workhouse?
What is your argument?
My argument is:-
To make care more affordable, we need
(a) the state to pay a realistic price for those whose care it pays for, as this would lower the overall price for self-funders (who currently pay inflated prices to subsidise the state-funded residents), and
(b) to reduce the often absurd levels of regulation — we don’t need 50+ pages of ‘guidance’ to specify safety glass.
I’m not suggesting anyone goes to the workhouse! I have spent ten years of my working life in a not-for-profit company that provides excellent care for older people.