During one of the group meetings in my practicum the other day, I heard two very similar stories from two of our group members. Despite the similarity of the underlying circumstances, however, the ways in which these individuals dealt with the situation could not have been more different.
In the first story, a gentleman about 80 years old but quite fit informed us that his home-care agency had just called to announce that they were withdrawing his care on grounds that they considered him capable of doing so on his own. The man disagrees with their assessment but claimed that he did not think it worth making a battle out of the issue.
In the second story, a lady of about the same age told us about how she was riding in a handi-transit van when the driver announced that he had to drop her off immediately. This woman is partially deft, and controls her balance problems by walking with a cane. The driver let her off at a bus stop without checking whether even had funds (fortunately she did), if a bus would take her to her home. Compared to the first story, however, this lady is highly self-advocating. She immediately made a formal complaint to the company and has demanded an investigation into matter. At the moment, it looks like an investigation will indeed be carried out.
These stories really got me thinking about the concept of advocacy within the seniors' own world. Very often in social work, we talk about advocating for this group or that group. This is very important, of course, but I think a fascinating subject field may be that of seniors advocating on behalf of themselves and other seniors.
Epstein, West, and Riegel (2000) present an interesting account of an organization called the Joint Public Affairs Committee for Older Adults, which aims to help train seniors to be their own advocates. For myself, I feel that this is a far superior solution to the problem because it honors the self-determination and respect that seniors deserve, not as helpless child figures, but as fully-functioning adults. When the lady in the story above gets her formal apology from the transit company, it will affirm the efficacy and effectiveness that she still possesses and will be a statement of her own relevance. Even representation by the best social worker advocate in the world could never get her that same confirmation.
Clearly, as seniors age, their facilities will inevitably begin to diminish and their ability to be strong advocates for themselves and others will be reduced, as well. Nevertheless, giving seniors the tools to maintain their ability to stick up for themselves for as long as possible seems to me to be one of the best, noblest, and most sustainable long-term solutions to the problem of ageism.
Secondly, the story of gentleman whose homecare was withdrawn provides what I consider to be another interesting comment upon overcoming ageism. Admittedly, this is far from the usual ground we cover, but I would like to introduce it as a discussion point, nonetheless. There is definitely more than one interpretation to be made from this story, however, the one that interests me most is that this particular senior, despite not necessarily going to bat for himself as enthusiastically as the other lady, had the financial resources on hand to suffer only an inconvenience instead of a disaster. As a result, despite the decision of his homecare agency, he avoided being marginalized by this outcome.
As we have often found in in these blogs, seniors are a much-oppressed group, and oppression often comes hand-in-hand with powerlessness. Like it or not, in our modern world, a significant source of power is financial. Donald Trump is 64. Bill Gates is 55. Warren Buffett is 80! Despite each of them technically being senior citizens, none of these individuals is likely to be marginalized anytime soon. These are extreme examples, of course, but the principle is the same. I often worry for the way old-age pension is administered in Canada today, as it is almost a perfectly designed system to marginalize seniors. You pay into the system all your life, then when you retire you hope to heaven that the country actually pays you back as it promised to do. With today's booming senior population, there are serious questions about whether the country can do so. Even if it could easily do so, however, the system still turns seniors from self-sufficient to dependents on the state - and when a person is dependent they find themselves open to all sorts of abuse.
The most important point I want to make is not to blame the victim by suggesting seniors are at fault for their own marginalization - there are, after all, many different avenues of abuse against which finances are no defense. Nevertheless, I think that there is an opportunity here to improve outcomes by reducing risk factors. As a big part of trying to help single teen mothers, we as a society conduct sex education to teens to help avoid unwanted pregnancies. To reduce rates of lung cancer we try to discourage healthy people from smoking. There are many other examples of this; workers safety initiatives, drug and alcohol prevention education, and so forth. Clearly, not everyone in Canada is in a position to save large amounts of money for retirement. Health issues, family demands, and many other factors can make saving difficult. Nevertheless, financial authorities in Canada continue to warn that Canadians who could be saving a great deal more are not doing so (Moore, Robson, Laurin, 2010). I think this is a major potential opportunity for education. How is it that we spend years teaching school children Shakespeare but rarely a single afternoon teaching them about RRSPs, how interest rates really work, the amount of money they need to save for a comfortable retirement, and so on? I think that this kind of education is a must-have, along with sex and health education, as mentioned previously. This is not a one-stop solution, of course, but I think our current system of essentially planning for dependency in old age is a significant cause of marginalization. After all, many years ago seniors were a dominant force in society. They had far more wealth, experience, and political power than did the young. This situation has reversed itself in recent years and I feel strongly that our current pension system has played a role in that reversal. I believe that to a certain extent, this planning for dependency is something that we can and should take steps to address. This sort of education is not likely to be of much use to the current generation of seniors, but tomorrow's seniors are today's youth, and I firmly believe that by building financial literacy and a culture of self-sufficiency today, we may reduce at least, a small fraction of old-age marginalization in the future.
References
Epstein, D., West, A.J., & Riegel, D.G. (2000) The Institute for Senior Action.
Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 33(4), 91-99
Moore, K.D., Robson, W., & Laurin, A. (2010). Canada's looming retirement challenge: Will future retirees be able to maintain their living standards upon retirement? C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, 317, 1-25. Retrieved from http://ideas.repec.org/a/cdh/commen/317.html
Your story about the man getting his services pulled because someone thought he could manage on his own, just gets me fired up. I think that if this senior needs the services, who is this person to pull the services that are in fact enhancing his quality of life. This is just redicelous for someone just make a judgement like that. I donnot understand who that person who pulled it thinks they are. They are not living in the clients body, so how do they know how the client feels? Fortunatly for this client, he seems to have enough confidence to advocate for himself, but then that leads me to thinking about all of the people who do not advocate for themselves, and how something like this does happen to the people who are afraid to. It is not right! Fortunatly having social workers involved in their lives, that is a part of our role, and if they cannot advocate for themselves, I am pretty sure this would be a role that one would take on! Your blog title says it all!
ReplyDelete~Jessica
Diana,
ReplyDeleteIt was a great post. Every time I hear or read anything about delivering a baby, I always remember when I had my children. I can’t imagine delivering a baby without the doctor giving me any pain reliever. You are right, there are so many things that a woman goes through. Some of them become resilient but some don’t manage to become one. In a medical model instead of empowering these people who are starting to develop mental disorder they are encouraged to take medications to recover from it. I checked the list of medications of my client. Out of curiosity, I made a research on the meds and discovered she takes three meds at the same time to cure the same ailment. I documented what I found out that the family doctor should reassess her medications to assess if she has to take the three altogether. I asked somebody from the office how come she is taking the same meds. She answered well that’s the way it goes. Some of the doctors give other kind medications to clients to boost the effect of the other. I told her well why don’t they just give them one medication? I was saddened by that excuse, what about the side effects of it? Are these medical professionals thinking about the client’s welfare? What if the client cannot afford those kinds of medications?