When we dis­cuss el­der­ly safe­ty, we talk most­ly about the ma­jor risks of liv­ing alone and plan how to al­le­vi­ate is­sues aris­ing. The dis­cus­sion is usu­al­ly about phys­i­cal in­juries—the risk of falling and ac­ci­dents, pre­scrip­tion over­dos­es, mal­nu­tri­tion or un­der­nu­tri­tion and un­ac­count­ed-for symp­toms of ill­ness­es.

There are al­so fi­nan­cial safe­ty is­sues. Some do not have suf­fi­cient in­come or rev­enue from pen­sions or grants or fa­mil­ial sup­port to ad­e­quate­ly meet dai­ly ex­pens­es es­pe­cial­ly where greater spend­ing is a fac­tor as a re­sult of ill health or from the de­mands for bet­ter nu­tri­tion, med­i­cines and sup­ple­ments. Some el­der­ly are robbed of their mon­ey, pos­ses­sions, and pen­sions by rel­a­tives and guardians, too.

The men­tal health dis­cus­sion about se­niors liv­ing alone cen­tres around lone­li­ness and its ef­fects, iso­la­tion, alone­ness, and the like. Anx­i­ety could be an is­sue among the el­der­ly stem­ming from the over­whelm­ing feel­ings as­so­ci­at­ed with alone­ness/lone­li­ness and oth­er is­sues of health, fi­nances, death, and liv­ing.

De­pres­sion too, stems from mul­ti­ple sources in­clud­ing lone­li­ness, ex­ag­ger­at­ed lengths of alone­ness, lack of ex­ter­nal stim­u­la­tion or com­mu­ni­ty/so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties and brain mal­func­tion which may come with age­ing.

Imag­ine hav­ing nev­er had to deal with any men­tal ill­ness­es or phys­i­cal con­di­tions un­til you reach an age when you are less like­ly to be able to cope with such con­di­tions. If you have been well all your life how do you pre­pare for the ills and com­pli­ca­tions that ac­com­pa­ny age­ing?

I am un­aware of how ro­bust our se­nior cit­i­zens’ pro­grammes are in T&T, but if we look at our so­cial wel­fare over­all, one may be­come in­se­cure about grow­ing old in our sys­tem of so­cial se­cu­ri­ty and so­cial safe­ty, es­pe­cial­ly if one’s wealth or fam­i­ly’s wealth would not pro­vide for what is cer­tain to oc­cur in many el­der­ly peo­ple.

Non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (NCDs) are the bane of our el­der­ly glob­al­ly. In T&T, it ac­counts for over 65 per cent of pre­ma­ture deaths of peo­ple be­tween the ages of 30 to 69. But mor­bid­i­ty, es­pe­cial­ly of di­a­betes, can­cers, heart dis­ease, strokes and chron­ic lung dis­eases are first­ly, ex­pen­sive to treat, and sec­ond­ly preva­lent among the age­ing.

Peo­ple are liv­ing longer world­wide, as in T&T, and that makes for larg­er port­fo­lios of the el­der­ly liv­ing with NCDs and need­ing care.

El­der abuse is a ma­jor con­cern, too, from rel­a­tives and oth­ers. There have been many news re­ports and some re­search stud­ies done to show how ram­pant this is­sue has be­come in T&T.

I have re­cent­ly been privy to ob­serv­ing an el­der be­ing left alone every day for months on end and, some­times, seem­ing­ly locked in a bed­room if one is to be­lieve the cries and ex­pres­sions of the in­di­vid­ual who kept say­ing they were locked in.

My agony over the per­son’s con­stant dis­tress cries and ag­gres­sive act­ing out prompt­ed me to press the rel­a­tive in charge and oth­ers con­cerned for in­ter­ven­tions. Not be­cause I am nosy, but be­cause I could hear the con­stant pained ex­pres­sions and it hurt me im­mense­ly. It made me con­sid­er what could be my cir­cum­stances if I am el­der­ly and in­ca­pac­i­tat­ed.

Among all of these is­sues of el­der liv­ing and es­pe­cial­ly liv­ing alone, as I age, de­spite not be­ing in any iso­lat­ed sit­u­a­tion, is my own height­ened in­se­cu­ri­ty about per­son­al safe­ty here.

Time and again the news of the el­der­ly be­ing vic­tims of crime, suf­fer­ing sundry abus­es at the hands of in­trud­ers, with home in­va­sions in the day and night, would reach us. For a brief mo­ment, the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty would cry out be­fore we re­turn to our nor­mal rou­tine and wait for the next in­ci­dent.

Two re­cent oc­cur­rences in close prox­im­i­ty have deep­ened my dread and anx­i­ety. The news of the bru­tal killing and al­leged/sus­pect­ed rape of a 76-year-old woman who was found dead in her bed­room has my body in tremors.

The re­port­ing cre­at­ed a deep dis­tur­bance for me. So, I guard­ed­ly raised it with a per­son in her com­mu­ni­ty who flip­pant­ly said, “She was lim­ing and drink­ing with them fel­las the evening be­fore” and moved im­me­di­ate­ly to an­oth­er top­ic with­out a breath for the se­ri­ous­ness of the in­frac­tion. It was al­most like “she looked for that” and my jaw dropped with how de­sen­si­tised we have be­come.

Hav­ing not re­cov­ered from that cal­lous­ness or the bru­tal­i­ty just yet, yes­ter­day I no­ticed a friend ex­claim­ing on Face­book about an 87-year-old be­ing raped. It sick­ened my soul. When I raised the sub­ject lat­er, I dis­cov­ered that the in­ci­dent and the ar­rest of a 24-year-old were in my home com­mu­ni­ty.

Once up­on a time, we used to say that liv­ing in the “coun­try ar­eas” was safe and that here was a par­adise.

That was a long time ago in a time when we were less vile, de­based and un­car­ing; when we re­gard­ed every­one’s life as pre­cious and we had re­spect for the el­der­ly.

Now, no one is safe from the bru­tal­i­ty and crim­i­nal­i­ty. Age­ing is dif­fi­cult by it­self and I am ag­griev­ed for our el­der­ly who are ap­par­ent­ly de­fence­less at the hands of these brute beasts.

Car­o­line Rav­el­lo is a strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions and me­dia pro­fes­sion­al and a pub­lic

health prac­ti­tion­er. She

holds an MA with mer­it in mass com­mu­ni­ca­tions (Uni­ver­si­ty of Leices­ter) and is a mas­ter of pub­lic health with dis­tinc­tion (UWI). Write to

mind­ful.tt@gmail.com