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Old People II
Sunday, 20th February 2011 20:10 PM
Yesterday the Today Program on Radio 4 followed up the reports on the Health Service Ombudsman's report on the care of old people with an emotional interview with someone who had attended the death of their father in hospital. It was clear that he had not been well looked after and that the daughter had tried to get better care for him. But more interesting was the evident guilt that she felt that she should have done more to make the hospital carers give her father the support he needed to die with dignity. I wonder what proportion of our generation, I am 58, have similar feelings of guilt.
Both my father and step mother died in a nursing home, so their passing was perhaps a little better than if they were in hospital. However I still have a sense of guilt that I could have made things better for them in the later years. It seems to me that the many professionals and businesses associated with the care of the elderly lack the imagination to think of alternatives to institutionalised care and it takes time and persistance to fight this blinkered approach. It is too easy to give up and say "They know best" even when you suspect that perhaps they don't.
I return to my point in the previous blog. The loss of the extended family, mobility, the emphasis on career development and yes selfishness has meant that the old have lost their place in the family ,leading to a lonely old age. We can't put the clock back so I it is difficult to see a solution to this. Perhaps a lonely death and middle aged guilt are the prices we have to pay for the way we live now.
Oh dear, I seem to have forgotten to take my happy pills today!