[attach id=257156 size="medium"]Elderly people need to be helped to deal with their needs, ensuring full integration and participation.[/attach] 

Individuality, identity, rights, choice, privacy, independence, dignity, respect, partnership, liberty and integrity are strongly safeguarded and treasured values.

These qualities encompass the world of autonomy. As individuals, we never think of trading our autonomy. Autonomy is a closely-guarded value for people who are not old, frail or vulnerable

Not until the individual is blessed with growing old. As vulnerability and frailty set in, elderly people are overcome by the zeal of someone who knows best for them. Society starts to dish out charity to elderly people.

Ageing stops being a process and the challenges of population ageing stop being met. Society takes control and ageing is turned into a problem. Autonomy is forfeited.

Not that the elderly person willingly lets go of their autonomy. The frail and vulnerable elderly person is ‘trapped’ within a system that does not allow them to direct their own life as freely as they would wish for.

In a subtle way, the elderly person is made to restructure choices and values

Society is young and free to move as it pleases, knows best and is in control. In a subtle way, the elderly person is made to restructure choices and values. Society, in the form of relatives, friends and others, becomes the voice of the elderly person. Through no choice of their own, elderly people are no longer unique individuals.

Autonomy is synonymous with liberty, self-rule, self-determination, freedom of will, dignity, integrity, individuality and identity, independence, responsibility and self-knowledge, implying that the elderly person must partake in decisions related to one’s own life.

A welfare society does not divorce the elderly person from the human person. The elderly person is one with the human person, encompassing the two key components of independence and dignity.

Looking through the eyes of the elderly person, we are faced with the stark realisation that society is failing one of its greatest pillars. Hidden behind the walls of their home or within the confines of long-term care, the concept of autonomy for elderly people becomes mechanical.

To date, this battle of control and power over the frail and vulnerable elderly person continues to happen. Families are not helped or offered support to care for the elderly person. Rather, they are offered the choice of long-term care or a residential home? Generally speaking, the family has come to expect this.

But where does the elderly person fit in the equation? I have watched this happening – turning ageing into a problem. The reasons vary from political to bureaucratic ones or to others associated with the actual nature of caring. Are they genuine reasons or pathetic excuses?

Society must culture the notion that the right for autonomous choices is there to stay and nurture throughout the person’s life. Autonomy must not be turned into a child’s boardgame, with a winner and a loser.

Let us stop playing with words and act. The frail and vulnerable elderly person has to be helped continuously to savour the sweet taste of autonomy throughout life, come what may.

There is a problem when elderly people are struggling to exert control over their autonomy. By virtue of age, the elderly must not be forced into being a spectator but a full, worthy and empowered participant in the community. The ‘show’ should be run by the elderly person and not for the elderly person.

As a society, we have achieved so much but our effort to maintain the elderly person within the community has not been the focus. In one street in Ta’ Kerċem, the elderly take pride in practising active ageing. Walking sticks and rollators are parked outside their doorways day and night to be used when they come out of their home to do some exercise, to buy bread or to chat with a newcomer.

Why was I mesmerised and intrigued by this? This should be the norm, our moral obligation. This is not providing for the elderly person but vice-versa. This is what the elderly person wants and what we all would cherish when we are old.

What do we know of the wants, likes and dislikes of the elderly person? Is providing care society’s only solace towards the elderly?

Is society’s mind at rest after achieving this? Is forfeiture of autonomy the essential requisite for ageing? Should this be the reward for growing old?

The elderly must be able to pursue their beliefs, rules, thoughts and principles. Elderly people need to be helped to deal with their needs, ensuring full integration and participation.

The elderly person, irrespective of whether residing at home or in long-term care, has to be a full participant in the developmental process of society and share its benefits. This is active ageing.

If this fundamental right is tarnished, then we, as a society, have failed.

www.apeamalta.com

Ms Fenech is general secretary of the Maltese Association for the Prevention of Elder Abuse.