Elder care for middle-classes to be abolished!

Rosie75

MRSTITTLEMOUSE wrote: »

Please don't take this the wrong way any of you but I think it's a sad sign of the times realy that we're even having to discuss this.
I must admit no one has ever been put in a nursing home in our family.We all feel we have a duty of care to look after each other.Just as you look after your young,the older generation needs looking after too.
I just think it's very sad the way society is today when tiny babies and children are put into nursery and old people need nursing care when years ago it was a family responsibility to do the caring.I do realise some families are'nt that close but perhaps our life style these days makes it that way.

It's easy to criticise people when you're not in that position yourself. Both my in-laws have dementia. One or both of them are often agitated, paranoid or agressive and will wander at night, banging on the neighbours' doors. They were both placed in specialist dementia units for their own safety, following several incidents during which the neighbours called the fire brigade and the police. Even if it were not for all this, if one of their sons (or their wife / partner) was to look after them, it would involve that couple giving up their jobs and homes, since both households require two incomes to pay the mortgage. It is an upsetting enough situation as it is without people telling you you are selfish and irresponsible.

treliac

I'm sure MrsT didn't mean it quite so harshly.

Many people have absolutely no idea of what they are going into when they do take on the care of elderly relatives with rapidly increasing needs. And our elders are living so much longer nowadays and with the most advanced physical and mental health difficulties.

Unless you have experienced the, often 24 hour, demands from older people with deteriorating conditions - and dementia is probably the most difficult to cope with - it's impossible to judge anyone struggling to do their best and make the right decisions in those situations.

neverdespairgirl

MRSTITTLEMOUSE wrote: »

I just think it's very sad the way society is today when tiny babies and children are put into nursery and old people need nursing care when years ago it was a family responsibility to do the caring.I do realise some families are'nt that close but perhaps our life style these days makes it that way.

It's not only that, it's vastly improved medicine and medical care which means that far more people live for years in very frail conditions.

harryhound

It is interesting to see this thread being tackled by us "doom & gloom" - formerly "the nutters" - money saving experts; it will be interesting to see how it pans out compared with "silver surfers" or "family relationships" threads - less smilies perhaps?

The end of life is a complete lottery.
Some people go out like a light, with something such as an aneurysm while still seemingly fit and healthy.
Some linger for years, costing someone somewhere 500 - 1000 per week.
That someone somewhere is probably you and me through our taxes.

Meanwhile a sizeable chunk of the country's capital remains tied up in under used used bricks and mortar. A "Keeping up appearances" exercise in status?
I have no easy solution, though someone above advocated easier availability of the "grannie flat" (ever tried getting permission for one of those through the planning system?) as an alternative to the "grannie farm".
The upper classes used to have this system, it was called
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dower_house
however it was a product of life before the married woman's property act so "grannie" had no choice about accepting her son (& daughter in law's ?!) kind offer.

Now we have a system that encourages a widow to hang onto the family pile as long as possible until taxes or care home fees force its sale. But the alternative. of down sizing into something more manageable and passing the capital to the younger generation, is fraught with dangers when the children's partners file for divorce in our flaky society.

Talking point: It is now possible to leave a surviving partner a life interest, rather than giving them the assets, without having to pay additional inheritance tax (at 40%). Is this a good idea?

Harry.

PS Sorry if this posting sounds sexist but the facts are (1) women live longer than men. (2) Brides tend to be younger than grooms (3) One man in 5 and one woman in 3 will end their days in residential care (I would be interested in their statistics for length of stay) Personally I would like to see a society where the senior citizens had an enjoyable, respected, useful role in their families.

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

Rosie75 wrote: »

It's easy to criticise people when you're not in that position yourself. Both my in-laws have dementia. One or both of them are often agitated, paranoid or agressive and will wander at night, banging on the neighbours' doors. They were both placed in specialist dementia units for their own safety, following several incidents during which the neighbours called the fire brigade and the police. Even if it were not for all this, if one of their sons (or their wife / partner) was to look after them, it would involve that couple giving up their jobs and homes, since both households require two incomes to pay the mortgage. It is an upsetting enough situation as it is without people telling you you are selfish and irresponsible.

In no way was I critisising anyone.I was merely stating a point.
I have been in this position (until just recently)so I do know the score.
I was merely saying that(unless in extreme circumstances) just like it was not the done thing to put a baby at a few weeks old in a nursery so that the mother could go out to work,we also used to take responsibility of our old folk too.Let's face it unless you had money,you had no choice.
The way we live nowadays deems we have to pass responsibility of both over to other people.Which no matter which way you look at it is very sad.
Just look at the many new mums who would love to stay at home and look after their babies but can't afford too and have to go back to work after the birth.Something,somewhere in society has gone very wrong when a mother is forced to do this.I just can't imagine how they must feel.
In no way was I trying to cause offence,just trying to put my feelings over.

baileysbattlebus

I agree with MrsT to a degree, but also with the poster who mentions family geography, in MIL's case, we lived in Berkshire, she lived in South Yorkshire. We did think about having her to live with us - we had the room. I would have to have given up work. But she didn't want to live with us, she wanted to be where she'd always been, she wouldn't even contemplate going into a home near us. She wanted to be in South Yorkshire, where her friends were. You couldn't tell her that most of her friends had already died and she was about the only one left.

My great grandmother spent her time between her two daughters when she was older. My grandparents all lived in their own homes, with a bit of family help until a couple of weeks before they died, when they went into hospital.

I don't know what will happen to us, we may be lucky and keep our health and our marbles. I really wouldn't want to inflict us on our children. OH's mother was in her late 40's when he was born, so he was 50 when she died at 98. If we live until we are 98, our eldest child will be 74 and his sisters just a year or so younger, so they will be quite elderly themselves.

We are living a lot longer - which is part of the problem with pension provision and every other sort of provision for the elderly.

In the early 1900's life expectancy for men was 45 and for women was 49 -
today's retiree will make it to 73, and today's baby to 90 and beyond. Women live longer still and a 60-year-old retiree today might live to 87, and a new baby to nearly 94.

"

If you look at life expectancy in 1948, when the state pension was introduced, and take that as a reasonable length of time to receive a pension, you would have a retirement age of 74 today."

baileysbattlebus

harryhound wrote: »

PS Sorry if this posting sounds sexist but the facts are (1) women live longer than men. (2) Brides tend to be younger than grooms (3) One man in 5 and one woman in 3 will end their days in residential care (I would be interested in their statistics for length of stay) Personally I would like to see a society where the senior citizens had an enjoyable, respected, useful role in their families.

I think I read somewhere that the average length of time in residential care was about 2 years.

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

We are living a lot longer but I wonder do we have the quality of life that should go with it.There's so many old people with dementia these days,to the degree that was previously unknown in the past as they would of probably of succumbed to some physical disorder long before their mind started suffering.So has medicine benefitted us in anyway(by prolonging the inevitable)or just caused huge problems.
In our own family when I'm 87,my daughter will be 70 and my granddaughter 51 so there'll be three old girls probably all needing to help each other out.
Mind you I'm quite sure my own marbles will have completely gone by then so I probably won't care.

baileysbattlebus

MRSTITTLEMOUSE wrote: »

We are living a lot longer but I wonder do we have the quality of life that should go with it.There's so many old people with dementia these days,to the degree that was previously unknown in the past as they would of probably of succumbed to some physical disorder long before their mind started suffering.So has medicine benefitted us in anyway(by prolonging the inevitable)or just caused huge problems.
In our own family when I'm 87,my daughter will be 70 and my granddaughter 51 so there'll be three old girls probably all needing to help each other out.
Mind you I'm quite sure my own marbles will have completely gone by then so I probably won't care.

I was going to post about quantity of life vs quality of life - but decided against it - I didn't want anyone to think that I was in favour of having our older members of society euthanased or anything. Which I'm not by the way.

In some of the most severe cases of demetia it makes you wonder if there is any quality of life really - but if they are healthy, they are healthy.

With MIL in the end she had a mild heart attack and she was taken into the cardiac unit of her local hospital - the consultant said they could give her a pace maker - but that really she reached the end of her life. So we told him not to give her the pace maker. A decision he agreed with and supported.
If she had been 78 and not 98 the decision would have been different.

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

baileysbattlebus wrote: »

I was going to post about quantity of life vs quality of life - but decided against it - I didn't want anyone to think that I was in favour of having our older members of society euthanased or anything. Which I'm not by the way.

In some of the most severe cases of demetia it makes you wonder if there is any quality of life really - but if they are healthy, they are healthy.

Just want to stress,I'm not for euthanasia either in any way.
I just wonder if medical science has done us any favour,by prolonging our physical life span ,while in the case of dementia we mentally decline.It's going against nature, however so does a lot of things which is why we end up in discussions like this.
There's no easy answer,it's just a sad fact of life.