As Positive Ageing Week gets under way, Paul Murray writes that old people are increasingly angry at discrimination against them on the basis of their age
It faces us all. Drying skin, sore bones, yellowing teeth, fading eyesight and forgetfulness can affect our lives as we move into our final years. The only escape is early death. It is all the more extraordinary, then, that ageing has been of such low priority in the public and political - as distinct from private - consciousness. Indecision reigns.
Take one example. We ask the Department of Health and Children to clarify some lines in Quality and Fairness, A Health System for You. Is it current Government policy that "the remit of the Social Services Inspectorate will be extended to include residential care for older people"? It is. Will the inspectorate be statutory? Will it be independent? A decision on this is "still under consideration".
What is there to consider? If independent and statutory oversight is needed to ensure that gardaí and financial institutions behave, surely it is required to guarantee protection for the frailest of the elderly in residential care?
The Rostrevor House nursing home debacle highlights the mess. A health board, the South Western Area, tries to get the High Court to close the nursing home but has to retire bruised to the District Court where proceedings were already extant. Pending further litigation we are unsure of the full facts, but it seems that the experts did not know how to go about getting a closure order. And the health boards, as well as many excellent nursing homes, have been let down by creaking and porous legislation.
The Labour Party, with a brief to champion the marginalised, with great fanfare publicises its campaign to extend the Breast Check programme, rightly pointing to our high rates of the disease compared to Northern Ireland, but neglecting to even mention women of 65-plus who are barred from participating in the programme.
This is despite the fact that the Northern scheme is being broadened to include women up to 70, and that half of breast cancers occur in women over 65.
Ageism, discrimination against old people on the basis of age, one of the last "isms", is hardly on society's agenda as an issue worth tackling. Despite increasing and improving media coverage of this area, there were only 61 articles on ageism compared to 2,085 on racism in The Irish Times between 2002-2004, according to research presented to the Irish Gerontological Society. Yet, unlike race issues, age issues affect us all.
So why the silence, why the political somnolence? Is it that we do not want to consider ageing, that we are like many young people who refuse to even consider arranging pension coverage?
The French, perhaps, realising citizens' unwillingness to consider their approach towards the Pearly Gates, targeted young people to try to get across the ageing message. They were conscious, too, that many children of North African origin missed their grandparents. So they organised thousands of children to review books on the relationship between the generations.
Age Action Ireland has a somewhat similar, and increasingly popular, project. We ask Transition Year students to give us their perceptions of age, in words or in photographs. It forces them to think of the older generation, to collect some valuable prizes, and us oldies to reflect on the telescoping years.
It is one element in Positive Ageing Week, which began yesterday and runs until Saturday, and is an attempt to move ageing issues away from being regarded purely as part of the health agenda. The elderly can have health issues, but should not be defined by them.
We have also asked churches to become involved, to mark the week with appropriate ritual, prayer or meditation.
There will be information days, seminars on well-being and the older person, "stress busting" for carers, a seminar on grand-parenting, a cross-Border event in Belfast with members of the University of the Third Age, a Government-organised conference on ageing, an anti-discrimination phone-in (1800 317 417), and tours of Leinster House.
Most importantly, throughout the country, older people will exhibit, reminisce, tell stories, arrange flowers, dance, keep fit, read poetry, sing, embroider and pray, as part of their promotion of the message that they are not dead yet, that life goes on in wondrous ways.
However, the 500,000 or so people over 65 need support, and not just financial, from the many worthwhile voluntary organisations, the Government and health boards. They want to be included in every aspect of Irish life, to be able to have their breasts checked like anyone else, to do FÁS courses, and pay a reasonable amount for travel insurance. They resent enforced retirement. They want their privacy respected, to be regarded as sexual beings, and to be consulted.
Older people, too, hate patronising advice, the assumption that they are always available to mind the grandchildren, and failure to understand their often slower pace. They are increasingly angry about anything that diminishes their humanity. Positive Ageing Week will help fuel that anger.