Everything the citizens of this country have been asked to do and sacrifice for over the past ten months has been in the name of protecting the elderly and vulnerable from the coronavirus.
Youngsters have no life or a proper education anymore, people have lost their jobs, some forever, entire businesses have been wiped out, social human interactions and travel have come to a standstill and the world is a dull and fearful masked dystopia.
Millions upon millions that the government does not have has been spent on propping up the country, more millions on green projects and even more on the so-called digital transformation. And that is outside of the money spent on healthcare to battle the pandemic and keep as many people alive as possible.
None of this would have meant anything to the elderly man found at the weekend on the floor of his flat, alone and on the brink of death. He had fallen three days previously and could not get up. As sad as it is to hear every day of pensioners dying in hospital from coronavirus – all of them also alone without family by their side when they die, but still being cared for – nothing could match the terror this 84-year-old must have felt alone and isolated for three long days and nights with no idea whether he would be discovered. He was found but died anyway.
And for what?
Just over a year ago, the Red Button project was approved by the cabinet, but it has not been implemented to date.
The project was to provide a paging service through a button worn on a bracelet by the elderly, those with disabilities and chronic illnesses.
In case of emergency, people would be able to contact a coordination centre, which was to run 24/7 and be staffed by social workers, psychologists and trained volunteers.
Why has this project not been implemented? There seems to be money for everything else. More importantly why was it not prioritised when the pandemic began as an added layer of protection for the elderly and the vulnerable, the same people threatened the most by coronavirus?
With sustained lockdowns, quasi-lockdowns and restrictive measures, we rarely hear about the elderly who live alone and suffer through this. Those with relatives or live-in carers to keep an eye on them obviously fare better but there must be hundreds if not thousands who have no one, just like the man who died on Sunday. And now with the latest decree banning home visits, people like this will be even more isolated in the coming weeks.
If a government pulls out all the stops to say they’re protecting the elderly, they should show they care about all of the elderly. The Red Button project sounds easy to implement now that we have a digital ministry, but they seem to be more taken up with projects that involve the public having to register their parcels online before going to the post office because somehow that is way more crucial right now.
