“A Headstone on Assisted Dying – for now”

Posted on October 7, 2015 by john graham

This subject has been a thread running through many of my posts ever since I started this blog in 2010. It was prompted by the story of Debbie Purdey, an MS sufferer who wanted “the right to die”. (See “Lucy Died Today” in the ARCHIVE – MARCH 2010).

In the five years since then, I have written nearly 20 posts on the subject – (you can find them all by clicking on “Assisted Suicide” in the TOPICS list and the TAG CLOUD). It is an emotive subject, which has been brought into the headlines by Lord Falconer’s Bill in the House of Lords and then the House of Commons. There are strong words and sincerely held views on both sides on the argument.

The emotion is captured in the names of the two opposing lobby groups – “Dignity in Dying” and “Care not Killing”.

Throughout, this protracted discussion has been punctuated by personal stories of individuals making the heart-rending decision to end their own lives by travelling to the euphemistically named “Dignitas Clinic” in Switzerland.

The arguments hang around three key issues :-

firstly, being able to draw clear boundaries around the definition of “terminal illness”. When the reality is that there are no clear boundaries and there has to be a fear that the definition of “terminal illness” will be stretched over time to include issues where quality of life is severely impaired – like dementia. Especially when so many beds are blocked by dementia patients.
The second key question is “how long have you got to live”? Only God knows the answer to that question, but if two doctors can’t see you living for more than 6 months, they would be able to authorise your assisted suicide.
The final issue is consent. The good news is you have to agree to this procedure, but be careful not to do so in a moment of depression or guilt after being led to believe you are a burden. There are no second chances, no room for regret.

I am relieved to say that MP’s in the House of Commons overwhelmingly voted down the Bill on the 11th September 2015 by 330 against to 115 in favour.

In all my previous posts, whilst I acknowledge there is strength and compassion on both sides of the arguments, I have always leaned in favour of not changing the law.

I worked for years with older people, many of whom had great frailties to overcome. The great lesson I have been left with is a memory of how much people can achieve in later life in spite of the ravages of old age.

With that in mind I would much prefer people in later life to have:-

A Right to Live

P. S. I very much doubt this debate is over.

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“The NHS Elephant”

Posted on October 5, 2015 by john graham

When the NHS was formed in 1948, it was rightly heralded as a massive achievement in pulling together a host of different health services to produce a universal service freely available to everyone. There was one holdout group that extracted an eleventh hour compromise – the medical consultants. To reach agreement with them, Aneurin Bevan had to concede that some doctors could continue with their private work while still being employed by the NHS.

This reluctant concession has been at the root of many of the NHS’s problems ever since. It created a mechanism for some doctors to earn more money and for wealthier patients to get priority access to care. I believe it was the origin of long waiting lists because that created a reason to pay to jump the queue. It helped develop a market for private health care.

It was “The Elephant in the Room” even before that expression was used. It suited the medical elite and their affluent patients not to talk about it, but as health care has become more and more specialised, it has made some members of a noble profession look more like the medical Mafia, acting in their own self-interest rather than that of their NHS patients. The average hospital consultant now earns £118,000 a year and can opt out of non-emergency work at evenings and weekends. In reality, many consultants earn much more than this by working in private practice as well.

The universality of the NHS is rapidly disappearing. The group of people who will be most affected by this are the elderly who are the ones most in need and least able to jump the queue with the wave of a credit card.

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“Cloud Surfing – Warren Flick”

Posted on September 13, 2015 by john graham

Still on my cloud surfing trip and riding on the wave created by Ronnie Bennett, “Time Goes By” blog roll. Thanks again Ronnie. This time I have landed on a really interesting blog by Warren Flick which you can find by clicking on this “Laterlivingblog“.

What first caught my eye was a post about a trip Warren made through the high plains. You can find the story in the archive for April 09, 2015. It has some great photos that show the huge expanse that is covered by the great plains area and the flatness and dryness of the landscape. Warren’s writing makes the trip really come to life and probably saves me from following in his footsteps :-). I’m sure my Texas friend John Tripplehorn would be interested to read his blog and particularly his comments about cowboys and cattle drives.

Another post which I found even more interesting was about a retirement community in Florida called The Villages. You can find it in the archive February 15, 2015. It was particularly interesting to me because I have spent most of my working life building retirement housing and pioneered the idea of retirement villages in the UK. I have been to Florida many times but not found this particular village.

The Villages complex that Warren describes, is home to 110,000 older people and covers an areas of 35 square miles. His post describes it very well so I won’t repeat it here, but what it does show is that many older people in America have many more opportunities for living in retirement than we have in the UK.

When I started working in retirement housing, a typical sheltered housing scheme had between 30 and 40 flats. Anything bigger than that was regarded, particularly by Social Services Departments, as something of a ghetto for older people. It took us many years to edge the numbers up from 30 to 40 to 50, but it wasn’t until we built our first retirement village in 1998 at Berryhill in Stoke on Trent that we managed to build our first larger scheme which was 148 flats. At the time we thought that this was enormous and there was only one other scheme of that size in the UK. Whilst at the ExtraCare Charitable Trust we subsequently went on to build many more villages, the largest of which so far is at Lark Hill Village in Nottingham which is over 300 flats and bungalows.

In spite of their noted success, retirement villages as a concept has still not really taken off in the UK and certainly nobody has been adventurous enough to build retirement communities on the scale that are built in the USA. With the desperate shortage of housing that exists in the UK, maybe someone sooner or later will take this bold step.

My thanks to Warren Flick for this insight into “The Villages in Florida” which you can find by clicking here .

Tagged Cloud Surfing | 4 Comments

“Cloud Surfing – Time Goes By”

Posted on September 1, 2015 by john graham

I have spent a large part of August exploring the hidden depths and dizzy heights of the internet. My search on the internet for positive stories about ageing goes on. You can see earlier posts on this theme by clicking on “CLOUD SURFING” in the TAG CLOUD”.

So far my hunt has been time consuming. It has been interesting nonetheless and I am beginning to gain some insight about how the internet is being used by older people, mainly of course in America.

I have found lots of blogs written by older people, thanks to a site put together by Ronni Bennett called “TIME GOES BY” (click on the link to see it). It has a massive blog roll, which is a list of links to blogs mainly written by older people. Most of them are written as diaries of later life and they give you a great insight of older people in America.

Most of what I have found has been in the USA and so I feel like Christopher Columbus with his trustee telescope searching for “land ahoy”. Thanks to Ronni Bennett’s website, my search has been made easier and it’s obvious that there is much more active involvement with older people on the internet, and blogging in particular, in the USA as compared to Great Britain.

Here are a few first impressions of what I have found so far:-

Most positively, publishing your thoughts on the internet is a new hobby for many elders;
You find some great examples of good writing and some brilliant photography;
Geneology features in quite a few blogs and shows how the internet is being used to allow people to explore their family history;
On the challenging side of later life, health issues feature quite prominently in a lot of peoples’ blogs;
Families and support from friends also feature quite frequently;
Most of all, you see great examples of people grasping the opportunity to learn new skills and seek new adventures.

Thank you Ronni Bennett for giving older people the chance to communicate their skills and wisdom around the world. I have found lots of interesting reading and several inspiring stories of how older people have created a new life for themselves in retirement. I’m still only half way through Ronni’s Elderblogs list, so I will continue my search in the following month and report back on what I find.

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“Pots and Kettles 2”

Posted on August 30, 2015 by john graham

The second article in the 20th August Financial Times was:-

“Two thirds of savers ……… cash in pension pots”

This is a result of the new freedom introduced in April this year which allows pensioners to cash in their entire pension rather than having to invest most of it in an annuity.

The pension companies have resisted this reform and done their best to frustrate it with high withdrawal charges. Nonetheless, 85,000 people have already taken the opportunity to withdraw some money, even though they may have to pay tax on some of it. Most of the pension pots involved are relatively small – averaging around £15,000, but it may be enough for some pensioners to pay off a mortgage, renovate the house, buy a new car or go on the trip of a lifetime.

Gone are the days when you trusted your hard-earned money to overpaid financial institutions to invest your savings safely. This is the live for today, to hell with tomorrow baby boomer pensioner generation.

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“Pots and Kettles”

Posted on August 28, 2015 by john graham

It is not often that I read the Financial Times, nor do I expect the pink pages to express concerns about older people, but the 20th August edition had two headlines that attracted my interest:-

“Square Mile fears reputation damage as fraudsters use prestigious addresses”

This was a front page headline about the increasing number of scams aimed at conning, mainly older people, into fake investment schemes in things like diamonds, wine and overseas land. They use City of London addresses to give credibility to their enticements. Rich returns are promised to unwary investors.

Pensioners seeking to make better returns on their pension pots were estimated to have lost at least £1.7 billion in 2014.

Of course there would not be so much pressure to take such risks with their money if there were better returns on savings. Also how much of a reputation for trust does the city still have with pensioners after the banking scandals, mis-selling huge bonus payments and excessive salaries in the financial sector in recent years?

The irony of this situation is lost on the sharp suited millionaires driving around in their flash cars. Hidden behind the mirror glass offices of the City of London. Robbers no longer wear balaclavas and carry swag bags over their shoulders. Now they are often indistinguishable from the city businessmen.

Continued in next post………………….

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“Cloud Surfing – Obama’s old age”

Posted on August 23, 2015 by john graham

So far I have only found a few interesting sites about remarkable older people, although there are a lot of older bloggers, mainly in America who have interesting stories to tell. It has taken hours of relatively aimless surfing to find them. (You can read about my travels by clicking on “Cloud Surfing” in the TAG CLOUD).

At last my cloud surfing adventure finally seems to have led me to something more substantial in terms of social policy.

Today I surfed all the way across the Atlantic and washed up at a conference at the White House. It took a bit of time surfing that far so I arrived late :-). It actually took place on 13th July.

The American Conference on Ageing has taken place every 10 years since 1961. On arrival my first problem was my Google door key had hundreds of options but no obvious directions. So, I went down lots of blind alleys for a while, which seems to be the way with cloud surfing.

Eventually I found a video podcast of President Obama making his introductory speech. President Obama at the 2015 Conference on Ageing (Click here if you have 20 minutes to spare).

President Obama made a very polished speech, with lots of self congratulations about the funding of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Evidently America truly is a land of milk and honey. Though I don’t suppose that President Obama’s old age will be dependent on Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security

He did then mention that 10,000 Americans reach 65 every day.

Then he pointed out:

Medicare and Medicaid are under demographic pressure and in deficit, so there is a need to “slow the growth of health care costs”. Sounds like code for cuts for the 9 million people on Medicaid.
Americans are not saving enough for retirement and many have to live only on social security.
They have a problem with high fees and biased advice for financial products for the elderly.
1/3 of Americans do not have a workplace pension.
Quality and safety in nursing homes is a big issue.
They are going to train more prosecutors to combat elder abuse.
Half of all Americans are expected to experience severe financial needs.

This rather takes the shine off President Obama’s message but sounds very similar to the situation in the UK!

It certainly was a polished politician’s speech but it didn’t sound as though President Obama’s promises would amount to very much action.

Tagged Cloud Surfing | 1 Comment

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“A Headstone on Assisted Dying – for now”

A Right to Live

“The NHS Elephant”

“Pots and Kettles 2”

“Pots and Kettles”

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