AUGUST 30 — They say only death and taxes are certain in this life.
Though in fact if you avoid death long enough to have to pay lots of taxes, you typically have to face a third unpleasant certainty — ageing.
Now ageing, of course, is a natural part of life — I actually love getting older as it means I am still alive.
But at a certain point or rather at a certain age, the simple act of living can become difficult.
As early as their 60s, people sometimes find their memory isn’t what it used to be.
Strength declines and things like going up stairs are just harder than they used to be.
Of course as one goes from 70 to 80 to 90 and beyond, these things tend to get harder and health complaints tend to become more frequent.
This is, of course, something we all know but it’s only recently after I’ve seen my own parents go from middle-aged to elderly that I’ve really started to take in the reality of ageing.
I guess I considered my parents eternally middle-aged but now I realise that the parents I remember from my childhood are roughly the same age I am now.
They don’t really go to work any more and they don’t tell us what to do quite as much, they also don’t always look after us in the ways they used to. In fact, more and more we have to look after them.
Have they been to the clinic, how are their finances, have they eaten properly today?
It’s a reversal of the way things used to be when they were the ones asking us these sorts of questions — but this is the reality for families across Singapore and of course, the world.
In Singapore, the issue is perhaps more acute because we have a lot of old people.
Just under 20 per cent of Singaporeans today are 65 and older and the elderly population is growing fast.
This segment of the population has to deal with financial insecurity as they usually don’t have steady incomes.
Their support structures aren’t always secure; families are small, children emigrate. Thousands of elderly Singaporeans do not have a child or younger close relative they can rely on.
It becomes harder and harder for them to navigate a city that has changed so much from the place they grew up in and more than the physical change, they have to deal with technological change.
They have to log in, scan things, keep dongles and passwords ready while remembering all sorts of new jargon to deal with mobile phone companies and data service providers.
By some estimates, over 40 per cent of the elderly population is poor or relatively poor, having far less income and money to draw on than working people.
Now with all these problems to deal with, the elderly are confronted with a new hazard — Covid-19.
Data increasingly indicates that around the world, the vast majority of deaths from Covid-19 have been in people over 70.
This means precautions have to be taken. Singapore now restricts visits to elderly care homes in order to protect the elderly from the virus and as the city gets back to normal, more measures may have to be introduced to protect older people who aren’t in care homes.
The problem is that while the best way to protect the elderly from Covid-19 may be to isolate them, that is usually the last thing they want and it doesn’t help them cope with all their other day-to-day challenges.
There are really no clear answers to these issues. It’s imperative that Singapore offers a high quality of life to its older citizens but what would the cost of high level care for all be to society as a whole?
Are the young able to afford to fund the benefits and programmes that will make life for the elderly easier?
While the government has been working to address the problem with support schemes, incentives, targeted programmes and activities for years, the bottom line remains that life is hard for many of the elderly and Covid-19 is only making it worse.
This ultimately affects us all as the elderly are our parents, neighbours, friends and not too far in the future they’ll be us.
How are we going to look after each other when 30, 40 and even 50 per cent of the population is old? Some radical new ideas and good old-fashioned values will be needed.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
