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Australia's tsunami of the aged

By Murray Hunter - posted Friday, 17 January 2014


This requires urgent public discussion and debate about social values, the human issues, and how aged care should be approached in the future under the above circumstances.

The Australian Government has responded to the aged care crisis by commissioning a host of inquiries over the last decade and a half, of which only snippets of the recommendations have been implemented.

Australiathe land of the young is a myth. Australia shares the reality as most of the post industrial societies do. The demographic of a rapidly aging population.

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Yet the aged in Australia have little dignity. Instead, they live in fear that the end stage of their lives will be a painful one, where they have no control.

The aged are becoming Australia's new dispossessed. Politicians seem unwilling to discuss the important issues of palliative care and the right to die in dignity, preferring to let so many citizens go through painful and lonely deaths.

Society needs to take a stand against the loss of dignity and suffering, and allow the elderly take control of their own destinies and choice of palliative care, when it only keeps them alive in pain and a terrible state. The state must also see that no one suffers due to neglect.

The above requires attitudinal changes. However any debate on such issues is likely to lead to massive polarization in community views, and consequent lack of decision and action by government.

The aged lack the alternative of non-drug therapies, where drug administration supports the institutionalized factory environment most aged care facilities have developed. Financial resource allocations have been so utilitarian that relaxation therapies, meditation, personalized music therapy, group narrative sessions, and one-to-one counseling are considered marginally beneficial.

Funding will have to be orientated towards user-pays with some form of national aged care insurance, although it will be very expensive due to the large proportion of people over 65 and small population base. Family values will have to accommodate parents living at home and being cared for, following some successful European examples. Massive skilled migration will be needed to have sufficient workers in the aged care sector. More aged care facilities need to be built, especially in rural Australia, which is lagging behind urban the centres of Australia.

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We know the problems, but are there any better solutions?

Governments of both persuasions have failed, now it's up to the community to start the debate. Successive Governments have listened too much to vested interests within the aged care industry, which has been plagued with scandals over the years.

If there are to be reforms, legislators must know the community is demanding them.

As elderly rights are being eroded with little safeguards, that are very expensive to exercise available, one must make a stand to prevent the aged care system becoming the 'brave new world' where people with 'expired use-by dates' are helplessly locked up in with no rights and dignity. Becoming aged now leads to dispossession in regards to the stripping of rights and property. The elderly can no longer be considered citizens with rights.

Putting people away to suffer hardship and pain is a form of torture. Civilization is judged upon how it treats its weakest members. Aged care has become people farming where a crop of people produce profits all year round for facility operators. Putting the aged into socially isolated people farms is a national disgrace of which all must take responsibility.

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About the Author

Murray Hunter is an associate professor at the University Malaysia Perlis. He blogs at Murray Hunter.

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