Our elderly deserve so much better than this

WE pride themselves on being one of the fairest nations on earth, yet our most vulnerable are enduring indignities you wouldn’t wish upon the family pet, writes Matthew Condon.

MY dear late grandmother’s life began in Reading, England, and ended over eighty years later in a corner hospital room in Southport, on the Gold Coast.

She and her family had migrated to Australia in the early 1900s, and washed up in Brisbane.

And when I asked her, near the end, if she’d had a happy life in this country, she said without batting an eyelid: “I’ve loathed every minute of it.”

It was, I chose to think, an end-of-life flash of her rapier wit. We both smiled after she said it.

But what wasn’t funny was the string of accommodations that this wonderful woman had had to endure in the lead up to that sad corner hospital room.

I recall a nursing home/halfway house in Butterfield Street, Herston, in Brisbane’s inner-north, where she was lodged for a time with her elderly sister.

New reports show nursing homes across the country are not up to scratch, and many are a “serious risk” to residents. (Pic: iStock)

In my grandmother’s words, I loathed every minute of seeing her in there, sharing a small room with other old ladies, the place a stinking mess.

The food was indescribable. The atmosphere was abjectly depressive. In residence with these elderly ladies were severely mentally incapacitated people, young and old.

I remember sitting with my grandmother in the sun on the veranda, holding her hand, and she staring across a courtyard at other inmates, and I wondered how a full and loving life could come to this.

She often simply broke into tears.

Traffic zoomed past on the nearby main road. Buses and trucks and people on bicycles went by. Life just carried on, as these elderly people sat marooned, staring into nothing.

There had to be a better way than this.

Yet how little things have changed.

The release yesterday of new data from the Aged Care Quality Agency brought back all those horrid memories of Butterfield Road.

AMA President Dr Michael Gannon has said the current standards of nutrition in nursing homes is a national disgrace. (Pic: News Corp)

The data showed that one in 70 nursing homes across the country were flagged as a “serious risk” to residents during 2017/18. And one in 16 failed government quality audits.

It further revealed that 10 per cent of nursing home residents were sent to hospital with injuries, from bruising to broken bones in the period 2014/15.

This follows an Australian Medical Association study earlier this year that revealed that of the 817 aged care providers for 64,256 residents, half of those residents suffered malnutrition, with pensioners spending as little as $6 a day on food.

The same study discovered that nursing homes had cut spending on food last year by a massive 30 per cent.

As AMA President Michael Gannon so rightly said at the time, this was “a national disgrace”.

According to the Human Rights Commission, by 2050 one quarter of all Australians will be aged 65 years and over.

Australians pride themselves on being happy and positive and blessed to be living in one of the fairest nations on earth.

Yet every day, at any given hour, somewhere across the country, someone’s grandmother or grandfather, someone’s Mum and Dad, are enduring indignities that you wouldn’t wish upon the family pet, at a time of life when they should be revered, comforted and valued.

And tomorrow will be just another day.