To­day, Oc­to­ber 1, is the In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Old­er Per­sons. The theme this year is Pan­demics: Do They Change How We Ad­dress Age and Age­ing? This is an ap­pro­pri­ate time for us to re­flect on this is­sue.

The Di­vi­sion of Age­ing in the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices re­minds us that T&T is “a part of that se­lect group of coun­tries with­in the de­vel­op­ing world hav­ing an ‘age­ing pop­u­la­tion,’ which is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the de­mo­graph­ic trend with­in the re­gion.

At present, the el­der­ly pop­u­la­tion of T&T stands at 12 per cent or 156,000 per­sons over the age of 60 years (Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice, 2010). Ac­cord­ing to the UN World Pop­u­la­tion Prospects (2008), the per­cent­age of per­sons in T&T aged 60 years and over is pro­ject­ed to be 17.7 per cent in 2025 and ex­pect­ed to grow to 30.1 per cent in 2050.”

I note that the min­istry “recog­nis­es that the el­der­ly is among its tar­get­ed vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions and is ready to pro­vide any psy­choso­cial sup­port, coun­selling and req­ui­site re­fer­rals and ad­vice to af­fect­ed per­sons and fam­i­lies. For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, per­sons may call the min­istry’s hot­line at 800 – 1MSD or the Old­er Per­son’s Hot­line: 800 – OPIC – 1405.”

UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, An­to­nio Guter­res says: “The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic is caus­ing un­told fear and suf­fer­ing for old­er peo­ple across the world. Be­yond its im­me­di­ate health im­pact, the pan­dem­ic is putting old­er peo­ple at greater risk of pover­ty, dis­crim­i­na­tion and iso­la­tion. It is like­ly to have a par­tic­u­lar­ly dev­as­tat­ing im­pact on old­er peo­ple in de­vel­op­ing coun­tries...The fa­tal­i­ty rate for old­er peo­ple is high­er over­all, and for those over 80, it is five times the glob­al av­er­age.”

On Sep­tem­ber 11, the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion stat­ed that among adults, the risk for se­vere ill­ness from COVID-19 eg re­quir­ing hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion, in­ten­sive care, or a ven­ti­la­tor, “in­creas­es with age, with old­er adults at high­est risk....eight out of 10 COVID-19-re­lat­ed deaths re­port­ed in the Unit­ed States have been among adults aged 65 years and old­er.” Of course, oth­er fac­tors such as un­der­ly­ing med­ical con­di­tions can in­crease the risk for old­er per­sons.

Here in T&T it is im­per­a­tive that we change how we ad­dress age and age­ing in the face of the pan­dem­ic. Let’s be clear though, any “change” must be in the best in­ter­ests of old­er peo­ple. We must re­spect their rights and dig­ni­ty. As the UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al says: “Old­er peo­ple have the same rights to life and health as every­one else”.

You may have read about the thou­sands of per­sons in care homes in Eng­land and Wales who have died from the virus. We have a num­ber of care homes in T&T. In April, the Min­is­ter of Health, Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, said there are about 3,000 to 6,000 el­der­ly per­sons across about 169 reg­is­tered homes but point­ed out that there are al­so un­reg­is­tered homes. The re­port stat­ed that these homes are un­der the con­trol of the Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health.

For­mal in­fec­tion pre­ven­tion con­trols guide­lines have been pro­duced for these homes. How­ev­er, we must go be­yond shar­ing best prac­tice, and must mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion in such homes.

We all have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­hance the qual­i­ty of life of old­er per­sons in our com­mu­ni­ties. Dur­ing this pan­dem­ic, please take ex­tra pre­cau­tion if you have old­er per­sons liv­ing with you, or if there are old­er per­sons in homes/places that you do vis­it. Reach out, par­tic­u­lar­ly to those old­er per­sons who may be liv­ing on their own. The World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion says that: “Old­er peo­ple are be­ing chal­lenged by re­quire­ments to spend more time at home, lack of phys­i­cal con­tact with oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers, friends and col­leagues, tem­po­rary ces­sa­tion of em­ploy­ment and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties; and anx­i­ety and fear of ill­ness and death—their own and oth­ers. It is there­fore im­por­tant that we cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties to fos­ter healthy age­ing dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.”

Let’s note the ad­vice giv­en dur­ing the reg­u­lar brief­in­gs on the pan­dem­ic and en­sure that we do not flout the COVID pro­to­cols. And let’s re­ject some of the stereo­types that ex­ist about old­er per­sons. Many of them, in­clud­ing me, con­tin­ue to make a valu­able con­tri­bu­tion to so­ci­ety. So, while we must ad­dress their needs dur­ing this chal­leng­ing time, let’s re­ject what Pope Fran­cis calls the “throw­away cul­ture” and tap in­to their tal­ent/gifts. As Pope Bene­dict XVI’s said: “The qual­i­ty of a so­ci­ety, I mean of a civil­i­sa­tion, is al­so judged by how it treats el­der­ly peo­ple and by the place it gives them in com­mu­ni­ty life.”