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Tories have lost their humanity |
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Written by Bev Muendel-Atherstone
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Saturday, July 04 2009, 8:39 PM |
Re: Greg Weadick’s column on seniors, June 26.
Of course, not one of us thinks or imagines as we age things may happen to us physically, emotionally or cognitively that will result in our inability to care for ourselves; however, each of us hopes someone will care for us as we have cared for others during our lifetime.
As Virgil Grandfield said during one of his talks, as we age we return to that stage likened to infancy where others care for us. Just as babies do not request care from our government, but still are cared for, so should every citizen be cared for irrespective of age.
As elders we do not request care from anyone because we see ourselves as the “independent” selves we have learned to be in our adult lives. We are unaware of that moment when we cascade into that abyss of not being able to distinguish whether we are capable or not of being independent.
It is such a gradual slide that we do not perceive it; when we are there, often we cannot articulate our needs.
To read the rather facile statement from Mr. Weadick, an MLA, that he has never met a senior who asks for “institutionalization” underscores my point — we will rarely know when we need help. We will most certainly not ask for it because in our culture, “independence” is the be-all and the end-all.
Thus, it is up to us, those who are in the middle of our lives, in the prime of our physical, mental and emotional lives to take care of both ends of the human spectrum, the aged and the newly born. We must demand that our government become humanized. We cannot allow our government to write off the elderly because they have done their “life’s work” and are no longer “economically useful” to society.
This “writing off” of our elders by putting them into sub-prime DAL facilities, is a solution to the Tories; financial crises which, if they stopped bailing out the oil industry and had charged appropriate royalties, would not exist in the first place.
The Conservatives have lost their humanity. They would like to balance their budget on the backs of the very lives of our elders who, as Grandfield reminds us, built this province, the fruits of which all Albertans enjoy daily.
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