JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, May 17, 2025

Is it safe for elderly to live alone in T&T?

by

Caroline Ravello
724 days ago
20230524

When we dis­cuss el­der­ly safe­ty, we talk most­ly about the ma­jor risks of liv­ing alone and plan how to al­le­vi­ate is­sues aris­ing. The dis­cus­sion is usu­al­ly about phys­i­cal in­juries—the risk of falling and ac­ci­dents, pre­scrip­tion over­dos­es, mal­nu­tri­tion or un­der­nu­tri­tion and un­ac­count­ed-for symp­toms of ill­ness­es.

There are al­so fi­nan­cial safe­ty is­sues. Some do not have suf­fi­cient in­come or rev­enue from pen­sions or grants or fa­mil­ial sup­port to ad­e­quate­ly meet dai­ly ex­pens­es es­pe­cial­ly where greater spend­ing is a fac­tor as a re­sult of ill health or from the de­mands for bet­ter nu­tri­tion, med­i­cines and sup­ple­ments. Some el­der­ly are robbed of their mon­ey, pos­ses­sions, and pen­sions by rel­a­tives and guardians, too.

The men­tal health dis­cus­sion about se­niors liv­ing alone cen­tres around lone­li­ness and its ef­fects, iso­la­tion, alone­ness, and the like. Anx­i­ety could be an is­sue among the el­der­ly stem­ming from the over­whelm­ing feel­ings as­so­ci­at­ed with alone­ness/lone­li­ness and oth­er is­sues of health, fi­nances, death, and liv­ing.

De­pres­sion too, stems from mul­ti­ple sources in­clud­ing lone­li­ness, ex­ag­ger­at­ed lengths of alone­ness, lack of ex­ter­nal stim­u­la­tion or com­mu­ni­ty/so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties and brain mal­func­tion which may come with age­ing.

Imag­ine hav­ing nev­er had to deal with any men­tal ill­ness­es or phys­i­cal con­di­tions un­til you reach an age when you are less like­ly to be able to cope with such con­di­tions. If you have been well all your life how do you pre­pare for the ills and com­pli­ca­tions that ac­com­pa­ny age­ing?

I am un­aware of how ro­bust our se­nior cit­i­zens’ pro­grammes are in T&T, but if we look at our so­cial wel­fare over­all, one may be­come in­se­cure about grow­ing old in our sys­tem of so­cial se­cu­ri­ty and so­cial safe­ty, es­pe­cial­ly if one’s wealth or fam­i­ly’s wealth would not pro­vide for what is cer­tain to oc­cur in many el­der­ly peo­ple.

Non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (NCDs) are the bane of our el­der­ly glob­al­ly. In T&T, it ac­counts for over 65 per cent of pre­ma­ture deaths of peo­ple be­tween the ages of 30 to 69. But mor­bid­i­ty, es­pe­cial­ly of di­a­betes, can­cers, heart dis­ease, strokes and chron­ic lung dis­eases are first­ly, ex­pen­sive to treat, and sec­ond­ly preva­lent among the age­ing.

Peo­ple are liv­ing longer world­wide, as in T&T, and that makes for larg­er port­fo­lios of the el­der­ly liv­ing with NCDs and need­ing care.

El­der abuse is a ma­jor con­cern, too, from rel­a­tives and oth­ers. There have been many news re­ports and some re­search stud­ies done to show how ram­pant this is­sue has be­come in T&T.

I have re­cent­ly been privy to ob­serv­ing an el­der be­ing left alone every day for months on end and, some­times, seem­ing­ly locked in a bed­room if one is to be­lieve the cries and ex­pres­sions of the in­di­vid­ual who kept say­ing they were locked in.

My agony over the per­son’s con­stant dis­tress cries and ag­gres­sive act­ing out prompt­ed me to press the rel­a­tive in charge and oth­ers con­cerned for in­ter­ven­tions. Not be­cause I am nosy, but be­cause I could hear the con­stant pained ex­pres­sions and it hurt me im­mense­ly. It made me con­sid­er what could be my cir­cum­stances if I am el­der­ly and in­ca­pac­i­tat­ed.

Among all of these is­sues of el­der liv­ing and es­pe­cial­ly liv­ing alone, as I age, de­spite not be­ing in any iso­lat­ed sit­u­a­tion, is my own height­ened in­se­cu­ri­ty about per­son­al safe­ty here.

Time and again the news of the el­der­ly be­ing vic­tims of crime, suf­fer­ing sundry abus­es at the hands of in­trud­ers, with home in­va­sions in the day and night, would reach us. For a brief mo­ment, the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty would cry out be­fore we re­turn to our nor­mal rou­tine and wait for the next in­ci­dent.

Two re­cent oc­cur­rences in close prox­im­i­ty have deep­ened my dread and anx­i­ety. The news of the bru­tal killing and al­leged/sus­pect­ed rape of a 76-year-old woman who was found dead in her bed­room has my body in tremors.

The re­port­ing cre­at­ed a deep dis­tur­bance for me. So, I guard­ed­ly raised it with a per­son in her com­mu­ni­ty who flip­pant­ly said, “She was lim­ing and drink­ing with them fel­las the evening be­fore” and moved im­me­di­ate­ly to an­oth­er top­ic with­out a breath for the se­ri­ous­ness of the in­frac­tion. It was al­most like “she looked for that” and my jaw dropped with how de­sen­si­tised we have be­come.

Hav­ing not re­cov­ered from that cal­lous­ness or the bru­tal­i­ty just yet, yes­ter­day I no­ticed a friend ex­claim­ing on Face­book about an 87-year-old be­ing raped. It sick­ened my soul. When I raised the sub­ject lat­er, I dis­cov­ered that the in­ci­dent and the ar­rest of a 24-year-old were in my home com­mu­ni­ty.

Once up­on a time, we used to say that liv­ing in the “coun­try ar­eas” was safe and that here was a par­adise.

That was a long time ago in a time when we were less vile, de­based and un­car­ing; when we re­gard­ed every­one’s life as pre­cious and we had re­spect for the el­der­ly.

Now, no one is safe from the bru­tal­i­ty and crim­i­nal­i­ty. Age­ing is dif­fi­cult by it­self and I am ag­griev­ed for our el­der­ly who are ap­par­ent­ly de­fence­less at the hands of these brute beasts.

Car­o­line Rav­el­lo is a strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions and me­dia pro­fes­sion­al and a pub­lic

health prac­ti­tion­er. She

holds an MA with mer­it in mass com­mu­ni­ca­tions (Uni­ver­si­ty of Leices­ter) and is a mas­ter of pub­lic health with dis­tinc­tion (UWI). Write to

mind­ful.tt@gmail.com

columnist


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored