UK: Beware the perils of getting old in Britain

. LONDON, England / Guardian / The Observer / Comment is Free / August 2, 2009 Once the aged were treated with reverence and care. Now 'codgercide' is all too prevalent By Kevin McKenna, The Observer A day may dawn when my children must come with a bib and give me soup while reminding me gently what names I had once given them. I will point to the field outside and ask them to look at the pretty elephants. They will scold their children for giggling at the old chap in the stripy brown dressing-gown. So, in advance of their cheek, I do hereby give them leave to mock my affliction. It is, if you like, my living will. If my life's narrative is to end with a lopsided grin in a bathchair at sunset being attended to by those whom I have loved, then I will probably be in a distinctly comfortable minority. For hammering at the door at the end of the corridor will be officers of the state – once upon a time they were called nurses – checking their watches ostentatiously and telling them that old Mr McKenna's time is up and that if they would just sign here they can take all the pain and the distress away. The floor will only rarely have seen a mop and there will be no curtains round the bed. It was not a good week to be an elderly person in Britain. A European Commission report revealed that UK pensioners are, relatively, among the poorest in the European Union. One-third of our OAPs is living in poverty. They are worse off than their comrade old gits in Romania and Poland. Meanwhile, an influential Italian doctor has proposed that national supplies of Tamiflu should not be wasted on the elderly because stocks should be preserved for young people. And then five law lords decided that families who want to help their terminally ill relatives commit suicide on "compassionate" grounds will be free from prosecution. If you're over 65 with a modest but smart wee property portfolio and been feeling a shade under the weather recently, then please beware of young relatives with vulpine grins bearing a one-way ticket to Switzerland. Our government has just given them the green light to dispatch you… and, of course, it shall all be for your own good owing to your "unbearable" suffering. Not long ago, our country was warned that we were sleepwalking into a culture of death. We have the highest abortion rate in Europe and our government has steadfastly refused to lower the limit in the face of the clearest evidence of human viability at 12 weeks or less. We also want to apply the law of the pig farm to producing embryos for the human spare parts business, AKA stem cell research. Now, five ermined hanging judges have chipped another little chunk away from an edifice we once called human dignity. In this Gadarene rush to embrace death at the slightest hint of discomfort, imperfection or simply "otherness", being old in 21st-century Britain is to be made to feel very uncomfortable indeed. Last year, Scotland's public services ombudsman condemned several health boards for poor standards of care for elderly patients. In particular, he highlighted as "inadequate" the care and dignity shown to an 88-year-old who died in a Glasgow hospital on an open ward. There were no curtains around her bed. There is not a single health authority in the UK where such cases are not commonplace. For in our country, the elderly and the infirm have become a burden that our state is increasingly unwilling to bear. A new philosophy has been allowed to evolve and it could be called compassionism. The uncouth and politically incorrect may call it Shipmanism. This holds that no citizen should be allowed to suffer undue pain as their life ebbs away. But lest we and the government, which has signed up to the human rights charter, be accused of codgercide, all concerned family members shall be deemed to have the best interests of the soon-to-be-deceased at heart if they want to do him in instead. Furthermore, if you are old and unable to hold your spoon, we shall slowly withdraw basic care, food and services from you so that your life is made unbearable and you may seek suicide (assisted, naturally). This has now become close to an imposed orthodoxy. Today, the assisted suicide debate is little more than the slightly inconvenienced middle classes trying to discover ways to remove all prospect of physical suffering from their lives. No one will ever be tried in a UK court for criminally assisting in a suicide. In less than a generation, a sort of pain index will operate in our health boards and very vulnerable people will endure pressure to wake up dead one morning. Resistance will be deemed to be selfish. Yet health professionals involved in palliative care will tell you that pain can be managed to a degree never believed possible a generation ago. And they will bear witness to the sheer humanity that pours forth when a family is allowed the opportunity to share in a parent's final agony. With the onset of old age comes sickness, infirmity and pain. It calls for small acts of heroism, sacrifice and nobility from families and friends. Most of those who reach this state and their loved ones are entitled to believe that they have paid in advance for the best care the state can afford. It is called National Insurance. Once, the attainment of old age was seen as a privilege. In Great Britain, it is now a curse and a shameful thing. [rc] © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009