Why no outcry over record aged care deaths? – opinion

More aged care residents have died with Covid in the past 10 weeks than in the entirety of 2020 and
2021 combined, recent Health Department data shows.

Hardly surprising. If large numbers of people live communally in shared spaces, that we can’t isolate
like a family home, of course, lots of people will catch it.

And if those people are frail, vulnerable and health compromised, they are far more likely to get sicker and die. What is surprising is the complete lack of public outcry.

Imagine if they were kids in child care, adults on a work site, or even offenders in a prison.

Why no outcry? Well, it looks like we’ve been taught to think it’s OK if you’re old and frail. That you were about to die anyway, that’s why you go to residential care, that you had nothing to live for, that your quality of life was very low. Maybe it was even a blessing.

Problem is, that’s not true.

Many frail older people actually enjoy their lives. And many more might if Aged Care stopped institutionalising them, and did more of whatever they care most about.

Or simply got out of the road and let others do what they can’t.

So, we made life miserable, then gave them a way out. And as bad as this sounds, we’ve all been given the green light to turn a blind eye to this. So, we’re not even examining our own ageism.

And make no mistake, aged care is teaching this to the whole community, including the young, who
will reshape the communities of tomorrow.

The answer? Be aware of our own ageism and say NO to it. In the workplace, in health, in housing,
in opportunity, in humour and in aged care.

That all accumulates in our minds to make older people less than the rest of us, and more likely to have bad things done to them.

Consider signing the Every Age Counts pledge so that we become a community groundswell for a world without ageism.

A community that will cut no slack to governments and providers who don’t see safety as part of quality, and who aren’t community champions for an aged care system free of ageism.

Mike Rungie specialises in the intersection between good lives and aged care. He is a member of a number of boards and committees including ACFA, Every Age Counts, Global Centre for Modern Ageing and GAP Productive Ageing Committee.

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