Ageing population crisis

[Cucumberpitta]

Medical intervention means we are living longer than ever before. We are spending a larger proportion of our lives dependent on care because we are disabled, in pain, and/or without mental capacity.

There are not enough carers because it's an undervalued role with shit pay.
There seems to be no planning by govt to prepare for this shift - there will literally not be enough carers or tax payers to look after the elderly.

Not to mention the questionable morality of preventing the death of someone for them to live in pain, doubly incontinent, immobile and confused; with insufficient care because there's just not enough funding for them.

People talk of the immigration crisis, climate crisis....

The percentage of elderly needing care is set to skyrocket and we can't even look after the current numbers properly.

What is going to happen?

[quote PissedOffNeighbour22]@awesomekilick we have the same issue with my stepdad. He is having dialysis 4 times a week (at massive expense to the taxpayer), he's had a stroke leaving him completely bedbound, he's got MRSA, a dodgy heart and dementia.
Yet a doctor thought it was appropriate to brink him back from the brink when he had Covid at the start of the pandemic.

He's in a state that no one should be in. Plus it's bankrupting the family paying for the care. The carers hate him because with the slight movement he has left in one arm he throws faeces around the room and at them. He's even done it at dialysis and instead of taking him off and sending him home, they cancelled someone's appointment and put him on another machine after they cleaned him up. That person whose machine he took was probably far more deserving of that machine based on quality of life.
No one deserves to live like he does now. He should have been allowed to die. [/quote]
Without a clear DNAR directive, the doctor could be struck off or even prosecuted for letting him die.

I've not read all the posts yet but just to put a more positive slant on the situation, I believe that at some point fairly soon we will develop an effective treatment for dementia. This will massively reduce the number of the elderly needing long term social care. My own mum for instance could have lived independently for many more years as she was physically fit but had dementia.