For older Australians, the pandemic is terrifying.
Despite the warnings sounded in NSW, and around the world, the virus has gotten into nursing homes in Victoria, with more than 250 residents infected.
It’s found an easy target in the aged care sector, so underfunded and poorly-regulated despite years of royal commissions and inquiries and scathing reports.
During the next fortnight, many will die. So far, the majority of the 167 Australians who have died of COVID-19 are men over 70.
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And yet despite all the statistics, and the aged care horror stories, older Australians feel they’ve been abandoned and ignored during the pandemic.
Lives cut short by uncertainty
Since the start of the pandemic, National Seniors has been collecting the stories of older Australians, documenting their fears and concerns about a year like no other.
As the virus progressed, and the lockdown shut down Australia, people felt their lives becoming increasingly difficult, National Seniors CEO John McCallum told Crikey.
“At the start of the pandemic, the main thing they were telling us was that shopping was getting really annoying and unfair,” McCallum said
“Then it became the serious of issue of people caring for their partners who couldn’t get medication easily, people who couldn’t get around.”
The lockdown also meant visits to aged care facilities were restricted. We were urged not to visit older loved ones; some doctors said it might be six months before it would be safe to visit grandparents.
All of this further added to the anxiety and isolation felt by older Australians. As one respondent to the Seniors’ Australia reported put it:
Older Australians know they are going to pass but to have your life cut short earlier by uncertainty is scary, worrying, stressful, causes heightened anxiety and feelings of being lost without any direction.
McCallum says the lockdown was particularly difficult for those without good digital literacy, who suffered greatly from the sudden loss of much-needed contact.
“People who weren’t digitally connected were genuinely isolated. After five or six weeks of it, you get quite lonely.”
Not everyone lives in aged care
The pandemic has highlighted the huge risk faced by residents in aged care facilities. But it’s also made life harder and scarier for people who live in the community.
Many of them are just as vulnerable to the virus. But they also rely heavily on support from family and the community. A 2017 report estimated unpaid carers provided $60 billion worth of support for older people per year.
When that support dried up because of the lockdown, many older people living in the community said they were left feeling forgotten.
“They’ve got no support, no access to proper PPE [personal protective equipment], and no priority for testing — they have to queue up just like everyone else,” McCallum said.
And so, in a case of the urgent overwhelming the important, many older Australians simply had to wait it out through a terrifying, isolating and uncertain period of lockdown. Now, the situation in Victoria has brought back that fear, with a second wave that is far nastier and more deeply embedded in the community than the first.
As we do our best to flatten the curve, and keep an eye on the situation in aged care, McCallum says we have to make sure the voices of older Australians aren’t forgotten.
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“A 2017 report estimated unpaid carers provided $60 billion worth of support for older people per year.
When that support dried up because of the lockdown…”
…but “caring” is one of four valid reasons for leaving home in Victoria, so presumably it hasn’t dried up.
Well said Kishor and congratulations for being the only journalist that I have read who has commented on this group in our community. I am a member of the over 70 group who has heard for 30 plus years that around 2020 we would have a large percentage of aged citizens. Despite governments knowing this the aged care sector is a total disgrace.
Fortunately some years ago I started feeding wild birds. I am thankful I did because they were my only visitors during the first and now second lockdown in Victoria. Fortunately I have neighbours who have been marvellous.
As Keith Richards has sagely noted: “The longer you live, the longer you want to live”.
With the corollary, “If I’d known that I’d live this long I’d have taken better care of myself!”.
I am impressed that he’s recently given up smoking. Reportedly.
At the risk of repeating myself I have just made this contribution to another article on aged care but feel it is just as relevant if not more so to this one.
Part of the problem is that similar to asylum seekers the aged population is one of ‘out of sight out of mind’. We hide groups that we choose to treat in a second class manner from mainstream society. This gives both government and society in general an out as to explaining the substandard treatment dished out to some groups. The general public can pretend to be unaware of the reality of the situation. Whereas asylum seekers are inherently bad – either terrorists in disguise or worse still queue jumpers, the aged are deemed to be a burden on society well past their use by date and hence they should be thankful for whatever they get.
In both cases it is an indictment on our society and the way vulnerable groups are treated. One of the reasons why the Nordic nations are always at the top of the Happiness list of nations is a confidence in their governments and societal commitment to maintain institutions of high quality in providing such services such as aged care. However, in Australia our major concerns are how to pay the least tax possible and then wonder why we get second rate services and an over-riding emphasis on market value or what is something worth or deserving of in terms of producing economic growth. Well it is fairly obvious that the elderly make little or no economic contribution rather they are a burden,that is until we look at their voluntary contribution in a whole range of areas. In fact our society would most likely suffer a major down turn in standards if not for the efforts of these older volunteers.
The wonder of it all is that some deluded clowns still attempt to paint Australia as an egalitarian nation based on concepts of fairness. Rather we are society based on the economic values of neo-liberalism – all about individual aspiration and pursuit of the unquestioned god of economic growth. A society where the weak and those of little economic value are to be trodden underfoot- how do you say it as collateral damage?
Mike Rubbo
etSpo3nsorreddm ·
I have to give a plug to Crikey. (This in mt Face timeline today) It’s not super cheap but the journalism is excellent, way above mainstream stuff which more and more you have to pay for anyway..
Moreover, the more people read Crikey, the more clout what they write will have. Think of you subscribing as amplifying an important voice.
Here’s what I’m offered this morning.
“…the virus has entered nursing homes..” TFIFY.
Try parsing – “And yet despite all the statistics, and the aged care horror stories, older Australians feel they’ve been abandoned and ignored during the pandemic.” – how does the first half relate to the second?