According to "Many vulnerable people denied care, says Age UK", over 800,000 people who are the elderly people in the UK still need social care services and supports from the government because they are abandoned and don't have a maid to do their housework, not even their families. The government solve this problem by cooperating with National Health Service (NHS) in the next year and increasing the budget for £3.8bn. But Ms. Caroline Abrahams, Age UK charity director, said 'this would have limited benefit because the system was so underfunded'.
I very concern about this issue and it's probably happened in my country as well. There are a lot of adult people who will be getting older in the next decade year and they will confront with the same situation as UK right now. The best thing we can do is analyzing and resolving the problem. We should start from ourselves by collecting money to be our funds when we are getting older and taking care of our health to be more healthy than other elders.
However, the government should give priority to this problem as an urgency and prepare convenient facilities for elderly people in the future, then they can take care of themselves without help. On the other hand, the government should arrange elder residence in case the ones who can't survive by themselves and prepare the specialist to take care of them. This topic is the main responsibility of the government to reward for the elderly people who developed and served the country for a long time.
__________
Reference
Kwang thinks that the government should be responsible (¶ 4) for this problem, but why? Why should the government be responsible for the problem of people getting old if they and their families have not responsibly planned for old age in advance?
ReplyDeleteAnd if the government does things like "arrange elder residence," that means they are using other people's money. Is this theft or morally equivalent to theft even if not legally so? Might it be even worse than simply taking people's money without their permission?
The general question here, I guess, is just what governments may, and may not, do to the citizens they are supposed to serve. This also relates to the issue about smoking that comes up in Mean's post "Smoking permission for Pupils at Peterborough" - how can governments justly (morally) interfere in personal behaviour that does not directly harm other people without their consent, such as smoking on private property, gambling, or banning large sugary drinks (proposed by New York's mayor last year) and so on?
Based on Thai culture, we respect older people as the holy thing in our house. They are also be personal consultant for us by using their experience and knowledge, just like my grand mother who still live with us and always teach us with love and kindness. Moreover, according to our constitution code and basic human rights, I still remember that senior citizen also have their rights to have convenient facilities and health care from the public services which the government should provide for them including elderly residence. That's why I think the government should take action right away and will be prompted for the widespread of this issue in the next decade year.
ReplyDelete