“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.” - UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, An­to­nio Guter­res

Be­tween 2019 and 2030, the num­ber of per­sons aged 60 years or over is pro­ject­ed to grow by 38%, from one bil­lion to 1.4 bil­lion, glob­al­ly out­num­ber­ing youth. This in­crease will be the great­est and the most rapid in the de­vel­op­ing world, recog­nis­ing that greater at­ten­tion needs to be paid to the spe­cif­ic chal­lenges af­fect­ing old­er per­sons.

Al­though all age groups are at risk of con­tract­ing COVID-19, old­er per­sons are at a sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er risk of mor­tal­i­ty and se­vere dis­ease fol­low­ing in­fec­tion, with those over 80 years old dy­ing at five times the av­er­age rate. An es­ti­mat­ed 66% of peo­ple aged 70 and over have at least one un­der­ly­ing con­di­tion, plac­ing them at in­creased risk of se­vere im­pact from COVID-19.

Old­er per­sons may al­so face age dis­crim­i­na­tion in de­ci­sions on med­ical care, triage, and life-sav­ing ther­a­pies. Some old­er peo­ple face ad­di­tion­al vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties at this time. The virus is not just threat­en­ing the lives and safe­ty of old­er per­sons, it is al­so threat­en­ing their so­cial net­works, their ac­cess to health ser­vices, their jobs and their pen­sions.

“No per­son, young or old, is ex­pend­able”, said UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­tónio Guter­res in a video mes­sage to launch a pol­i­cy brief on old­er per­sons last month. The im­pact on health and long-term care ser­vices for old­er per­sons must recog­nise and con­front the par­tic­u­lar chal­lenges they face, in­clud­ing their abil­i­ty to ac­cess med­ical treat­ment and care.

Ad­dress­ing El­der Abuse

El­der abuse can be de­fined as “a sin­gle, or re­peat­ed act, or lack of ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion, oc­cur­ring with­in any re­la­tion­ship where there is an ex­pec­ta­tion of trust which caus­es harm or dis­tress to an old­er per­son”. It is a glob­al so­cial is­sue which af­fects the Health and Hu­man Rights of mil­lions of old­er per­sons around the world, and an is­sue which de­serves the at­ten­tion of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

In many parts of the world el­der abuse oc­curs with lit­tle recog­ni­tion or re­sponse. Un­til re­cent­ly, this se­ri­ous so­cial prob­lem was hid­den from the pub­lic view and con­sid­ered most­ly a pri­vate mat­ter. Even to­day, el­der abuse con­tin­ues to be a taboo, most­ly un­der­es­ti­mat­ed and ig­nored by so­ci­eties across the world. Ev­i­dence is ac­cu­mu­lat­ing, how­ev­er, to in­di­cate that el­der abuse is an im­por­tant pub­lic health and so­ci­etal prob­lem.

UN ob­served – World El­der Abuse Aware­ness Day – June 15th

The World El­der Abuse Aware­ness Day hap­pens each year on June 15th. It was of­fi­cial­ly recog­nised by the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in its res­o­lu­tion 66/127, De­cem­ber 2011, fol­low­ing a re­quest by the In­ter­na­tion­al Net­work for the Pre­ven­tion of El­der Abuse (IN­PEA), who first es­tab­lished the com­mem­o­ra­tion in June 2006. It rep­re­sents the one day in the year when the whole world voic­es its op­po­si­tion to the abuse and suf­fer­ing in­flict­ed to some of our old­er gen­er­a­tions.

El­der abuse is a prob­lem that ex­ists in both de­vel­op­ing and de­vel­oped coun­tries yet is typ­i­cal­ly un­der­re­port­ed glob­al­ly. Preva­lence rates or es­ti­mates ex­ist on­ly in se­lect­ed de­vel­oped coun­tries — rang­ing from 1% to 10%. Al­though the ex­tent of el­der mis­treat­ment is un­known, its so­cial and moral sig­nif­i­cance is ob­vi­ous. As such, it de­mands a glob­al mul­ti­fac­eted re­sponse, one which fo­cus­es on pro­tect­ing the rights of old­er per­sons.

“To get through this pan­dem­ic to­geth­er, we need a surge in glob­al and na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty and the con­tri­bu­tions of all mem­bers of so­ci­ety, in­clud­ing old­er peo­ple. As we look to re­cov­er bet­ter, we will need am­bi­tion and vi­sion to build more in­clu­sive, sus­tain­able and age-friend­ly so­ci­eties that are fit for the fu­ture” un­der­scored the UN chief. “Dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions around life-sav­ing med­ical care must re­spect the hu­man rights and dig­ni­ty of all.”

Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al launch­es Pol­i­cy Brief on Old­er Per­sons

“To­day we are launch­ing a pol­i­cy brief that pro­vides analy­sis and rec­om­men­da­tions to ad­dress these chal­lenges. Our re­sponse to COVID-19 must re­spect the rights and dig­ni­ty of old­er peo­ple.”

There are four main mes­sages:

1. No per­son, young or old, is ex­pend­able. Old­er peo­ple have the same rights to life and health as every­one else. Dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions around life-sav­ing med­ical care must re­spect the hu­man rights and dig­ni­ty of all.

2. While phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing is cru­cial, let’s not for­get we are one com­mu­ni­ty and we all be­long to each oth­er. We need im­proved so­cial sup­port and smarter ef­forts to reach old­er peo­ple through dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy. That is vi­tal to old­er peo­ple who may face great suf­fer­ing and iso­la­tion un­der lock­downs and oth­er re­stric­tions.

3. All so­cial, eco­nom­ic and hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­spons­es must take the needs of old­er peo­ple ful­ly in­to ac­count, from uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age to so­cial pro­tec­tion, de­cent work and pen­sions. The ma­jor­i­ty of old­er peo­ple are women, who are more like­ly to en­ter this pe­ri­od of their lives in pover­ty and with­out ac­cess to health­care.

4. Let’s not treat old­er peo­ple as in­vis­i­ble or pow­er­less. Poli­cies must be tar­get­ed at meet­ing their needs.