The elderly deserve better

 

Rights are nice ideas, a comforting window through which to view the world. But once the glass is broken, you realize they were never really there. – Michael Marshall Smith in Rain Falls, a short story in The Mammoth Book of Wolf Men – The Ultimate Werewolf Anthology

When I was younger I didn’t really think much about death because my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles were still young and I didn’t really worry about the fact that they could disappear one day. For me that day was still far away. Death for me is not the worst that can happen to someone. It can actually be liberating. We all wish that when it happens to us or to our loved ones, that it takes us in a second, without pain, so that we don’t even know what we died of. But life and death don’t always work like we want. (Actually, do they ever?) The worst that can happen is all the pain, impotence and despair we have to endure before we go... and knowing that we will be at the mercy of a sick, insensitive society who can’t care less about their elderly.

I have a second generation aunt struggling in hospital at the moment. She is very old, 97 years old. The doctors keep saying that she will not recover which is no surprise, given her age. As sad as it is to know that she will go soon, I accept that because she has lived her life. Actually, it saddens me more when I see young people go because they still had their whole life ahead of them. However, knowing that an old person will go soon doesn’t mean we should just leave them in a corner while they wait for death to collect them. Everybody should go with dignity no matter how much time they still have left. Societies are composed of children, youngsters, adults and the elderly. We all need each other. Is it fair to just shrug our shoulders and let the elderly die like they don’t matter? They do matter.

What is exactly happening with my aunt that makes me have to put all my anger and revolt in words? My aunt can no longer feed herself by normal means. The food could block her lungs and eventually choke her. Inserting a tube in her stomach would be too violent given her age. She was then put on a drip with glucose. The doctors say though that it’s not enough and the best would be to take her off the drip. You may say that if she is doomed anyway, this is indeed the best. BUT my aunt is not unconscious or in coma. She is not connected to a machine to keep her biologically alive. She is still pretty much awake and conscious. She keeps asking my cousin for food and to go home. Taking her off the drip would be to condemn her to starvation which, since she is still awake and aware, is just inhumane. It’s speeding up her death.

I keep asking myself where our humanity has gone to and the only conclusion I can get is that we, humans, have created a society that values people only according to their contribution towards economy. You can even see this on a corporate level. A company will take care of you provided that it needs your skills to help it make money. The moment the company doesn’t need you, off you go. If you’re lucky you may be treated with some dignity and be sent away with a retrenchment package to keep you going while you look for another job. If not, they probably will make you feel so miserable that you will be the one wanting to leave. And, in that case, so much for a retrenchment package. You’re the one leaving after all.

It’s the same with the elderly. While we are young, can work, pay taxes and produce richness, everybody will take care of us because we are good for the economy. When we retire, not only we will no longer be paying taxes or produce, but we will be costing governments a lot of money with the pensions they will have to pay us. So, why keep us alive? Best to get rid of us asap and keep the money for other things, including filling up some pockets. And that is why I started this blog entry with Smith’s quotation. Rights are an illusion. A beautiful ideal we have created to pretend that life and the world are a happy place, but do they really exist? We just sugar-coat reality and twist everything up. We don’t really have rights because the world is just a scheme orchestrated by a few to profit from.

Even this pandemic, which seems to be targeting the elderly the most, smells like a coward attempt to get rid of old people. I heard stories about hospitals being so full and overwhelmed during the peak of covid that doctors and nurses had no choice but to euthanize some older patients in order to release space and resources for younger people who had stronger chances of recovering. I do NOT point my fingers at these healthcare professionals if these stories are indeed true. I cannot even start to imagine having to choose between saving an 80 year old and a 30 year old. To me, healthcare providers are just pawns in this ugly, dirty game. The ones who are being used and forced to serve the interests of those behind this pandemic. And we don’t know even the tip of the iceberg.

We all know that we are going to die one day. But that is not a reason to discard our elderly just because they are condemned anyway. They deserve to be treated with respect and, even if we cannot save them, we can help them eat, have a shower and get dressed. Even smiling at them. Make them look and feel human. Have we forgotten that if it weren’t for those who came before us, maybe we wouldn’t have the lives we have today? So many of our elderly fought for freedom, justice, equality, progress, free education, you name it. And the way that we, as a society, say thank you is by letting them rot like apples fallen from a tree.

Even animals take care of their elderly. An old wolf will not be kicked from its pack for being old and“useless”. On the contrary. The pack will still feed and care for this wolf until it releases its last breath because they know how important this particular wolf was in teaching them about pack life.

Surely this is not targeted at everybody. I do know some of you still care and I thank you for that. I am merely venting about how the doctors at the hospital my aunt is in are reluctant to keep her on a drip despite my cousins having insisted for such. My aunt is not in coma as I said. She is awake. Don’t let her starve. I don’t even know if I am making any sense but none of this sounds fair or humane to me.