During my recent and frequent bouts of insomnia, I’ve been revisiting some favorite novels. Children of Men by P.D. James (1992), is set in 2021. The human race has stopped reproducing – no new babies have been born since 1995, and the aging population is looking for answers. A dictatorship now rules Britain, and the leader has implemented a series of unpalatable policies: frequent and humiliating fertility testing, widespread pornographic stimulation, and for those becoming a burden on society, an opportunity:
“By his decree the old are herded onto a ship for a seeming mass suicide, a ritual called the Quietus. But these people are in fact not suicides but victims — drugged and set adrift to drown. And Theodore Faron, trying to save one woman from the Quietus, is beaten senseless by a soldier of the state.” (O Brave New World, That Has No People In’t! March 28, 1993, Sunday, Late Edition – Final by Walter Wangerin Jr. New York Times)
James taps into something simmering in the temperament of western society in this year: 2022. How have we cared for our aging population? Are we doing better at this than generations before? It seems not. Given the disastrous outcomes for folks living in nursing homes as a result of the pandemic, and what we learned about such institutions, it seems we are doing far worse.
Many elderly folks suffered isolation, disruption of care, and needless worry due to poor planning, and inadequate crisis response in a seniors living communities at the beginning of the pandemic. Many died an untimely deaths as a direct result.
Has our state made adequate changes since the height of the crisis? Doubtful. It’s time to look to other cultures and their practices for caring for the elderly. We know there are countries and communities where senior citizens are treated respectfully, and cared for as a priority. Denmark provides one telling example, where municipalities are responsible for eldercare, nursing homes are integrated into public spaces, and new technologies are maximized. Read more here: https://www.cfn-nce.ca/impact/learning-from-the-leaders-a-knowledge-exchange-with-denmark/
Not applying similar principles here is on par with allowing our own Quietus.