When you're older, you may not be worth keeping alive

 

All over the world - the First World at least, North America, Europe, Australasia - older people are finding that their government(s) regard them as a burden, not an asset.  Old people cost a lot of money in medical care, pensions, entitlement programs and the like, and governments would really prefer not to have to pay those costs.

Dr. Vernon Coleman writes as an Englishman about what he sees in the UK, but his observations apply very much to other First World nations, including our own.  My thanks to three readers who sent me links to his article yesterday.  Here are a few excerpts.

In Britain, it is now official Government policy to ignore the needs of the elderly. This policy is common throughout the world. Doctors and nurses are told to let old people die - and to withhold treatment which might save their lives.

Hospital staff are told to deprive the elderly of food and water so that they die rather than take up hospital beds. Nursing home staff have even been given the right to sedate elderly patients without their knowledge. The only -ism that no one cares about is ageism ... Anyone over 60 is now officially old, though in a growing number of hospitals the cut off age for resuscitation is 55 or even 50.

. . .

Old people are a burden which the Government cannot afford and so the politicians will continue to authorise whatever methods are necessary to ensure that the number of burdensome old people is kept to a minimum. The existence of an absurd branch of medicine called geriatrics is used as an excuse to shove old people into backwater wards and to provide them with second-rate medical treatment.

. . .

The elderly are classified as the `Unwanted Generation': a political embarrassment ... The elderly are considered expensive, useless and expendable. The theory is that they don't contribute and rarely vote and can, therefore, be disregarded ... The official attitude seems to be that old people don't matter and don't have rights simply because they are old.

. . .

Ageism is, it seems, now endemic in health care. A reader wrote to tell me that when she visited her doctor complaining of painful knees her doctor told her, very abruptly, that her problem was that she was living too long. She was devastated. `It wasn't said as a joke,' she told me. `He meant it.' In the months before he died my father repeatedly complained: `People treat me like a fool because I am old'. A 79-year-old reader told me: `If you are over 55 they want you dead because you're too expensive alive.'

. . .

When doctors are owned by the Government then the Government's priorities take over. And so the elderly, who are regarded as an expensive burden, are considered expendable.

There's much more at the link.  Highly recommended reading, particularly if you're getting on in years (as I am).

We've seen plenty of horror stories about such (mis)treatment of older patients from Britain and Canada.  In the latter country, the elderly are frequently offered "assisted dying" rather than medical treatment, and if they refuse it, their treatment tends to be minimal, delayed, and less than optimal.  In Europe, it's now legal in some countries for doctors to euthanize some patients even if the patients don't want to die, because death is the most cost-effective treatment from the perspective of the government(s) paying for it.  That isn't what the statutes say, but it's certainly what they mean - and if doctors overstep the mark and are too quick to euthanize those requiring expensive treatment, they are seldom if ever prosecuted or called to account.

The problem is rearing its head in the USA as well.  Ten states now allow "assisted suicide", and others are considering it.  Speaking as a retired pastor and chaplain, I've heard from far too many former colleagues and acquaintances that there's increasing pressure from the medical "establishment" against older, sicker patients to take that option rather than opt for much more expensive and prolonged medical care.  Medicare was intended to provide medical insurance to older people, but its coverage is growing less and less for more and more expensive conditions.  Some treatments are not covered at all, even if they're the only meaningful option for the patient concerned.  What's more, patient co-payments are percentage-based, so as medical costs increase, so do patients' out-of-pocket expenses (which many of them can't afford).  The inevitable result is going to be patients who feel they have no option but to die, because they can't afford the medical care they need.

Of course, this is pretty much a First World problem.  I was born and raised in Africa, and spent many years in the Third World.  There, getting older is all too often a death sentence, even if the individual is still relatively healthy, because anything other than primary care is simply not available.  Furthermore, rights are all too often group- or tribe-based, rather than individual.  In tribal society, during times of famine, it was customary for all the older people to simply walk off into the surrounding countryside, sit down under a bush, and wait for death.  That might come through starvation, but it was often enough caused by predatory animals, who weren't about to pass up an easy, defenseless meal if one presented itself.  (That's how many man-eaters got their start;  eating starving or diseased humans.)  In such societies, the thought of socialized, subsidized medicine is laughable to the point of derision.  When there isn't enough to go around anyway, it's reserved for those who can contribute the most to the tribe's or the group's survival.  That does not include the elderly.

I've been facing pretty nasty health issues for a few years now, and I have more major surgery in my future, whether I like it or not.  It's sobering to consider that if I had to rely on government-subsidized care to provide it, in many parts of the First World I'd now be receiving "counseling" about the "benefits" of assisted suicide or euthanasia;  and in some, I might be told flatly that I can't have the surgery I need, so I may as well go home, live with the pain, and get ready to die.  Yes, it's already as bad as that.  I've been able to cover the necessary costs thus far, thanks to (some) private medical insurance and the generosity of friends, readers and others.  Will that continue?  Who knows?

It's a very sobering thought for those of us who are growing older, or who aren't in good health.  Food for thought indeed!  It might be a useful rallying point for older voters, too.  We may be only one constituency in the voting population, but our votes can be enough to sway an election one way or another.  Politicians should be reminded of that.

Peter