I can’t tell you how many baby boomers I’ve heard say they would take cyanide first rather than go live in a long-term care home when they are elderly. Quite a few.
I’m sorry to break this news to my fellow baby boomers, but it’s time to drop your fantasies of extreme skiing at 80 or climbing Kilimanjaro at 95. I know you believe you’re in control, because while you were young and healthy, it was easy to believe that. But you won’t be in control forever.
You might be the exception to the rule and scale Kilimanjaro at 95. You might be blowing out the candles on your 105th birthday cake as reporters shove microphones in your face and ask that timeless, if inane, question: “What’s your secret to longevity?” But chances are you won’t be.
Even now, we baby boomers are beginning to tally up the casualties that are occurring more frequently than they did 10 years ago: this friend was diagnosed with a brain tumour, that one has prostate cancer, another one had a stent put in an artery.
Sound grim? For too long we boomers — and the Canadian government — have preferred to look the other way when faced with the prospect of our inevitable decrepitude. The price we’re going to pay for burying our heads in the sand will be enormous.
According to a June 2012 report on long-term care by the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association Inc., “225,000 Canadians turn 65 each year; about seven per cent of Canadians age 65 and over reside in health-care institutions; one in 11 Canadians over the age of 65 is affected by Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia; about 50,000 strokes occur in Canada each year, with stroke being the leading cause of transfer from a hospital to long-term care.”
The report says as the boomers age: “This implies there will be almost one million Canadians with dementia by 2036 as compared to about 450,000 today ... it can be extrapolated that over 750,000 Canadians over the age of 64 will reside in health-care institutions by 2036 compared to about 300,000 today.”
And Canadian Government Executive warns that: “Canada is sleepwalking into a long-term care funding crisis and urgent policy action is required to ensure baby boomers will have access to the long-term care they need. Canadians are living longer ... but, as a result, they are increasingly likely to be managing a chronic disease through old age which, in many cases, will mean they will need some form of long-term care support.”
That doesn’t mean assistance strapping on skis because a bit of arthritis makes it hard to do up the bindings. It means home care as well as the availability of nursing homes.
Forbes magazine, citing the American Association of Retired Persons, says today there are seven people aged 45 to 64 to care for each person 80 or older. By 2030, that number will drop to four.
In 2025, the advance guard of the boomers will hit 80, “an age at which they are likely to need some level of assistance.”
Cassie Liska, whose mother died in a Calgary nursing home of severe blood poisoning after the dressings on her bed sores went unchanged for two days, blames her mother’s tragedy partly on facilities that “aren’t getting the resources they need.”
She cited staff numbers as one factor, saying that call bells sometimes went unanswered for more than half an hour and one nurse told her one weekend “she was the only one on duty to care for 150 residents.”
Hello, Canadian government — you have no strategy for dealing with the coming onslaught of dementia or with the looming long-term care crisis. There might be a little bit of extreme skiing, but there’s going to be a whole lot more of extreme suffering. No wonder the more morbid boomers are muttering things about cyanide.
