Elderly people ‘facing prejudice in healthcare and social services’

AGEISM in Ireland’s health and social services is a reality, with older people suffering prejudice and discrimination regularly, a report yesterday found.

The study for the National Council on Ageing and Older People (NCAOP) found “concrete examples of prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory practices” experienced by elderly people or witnessed by health and social care providers. The council said it was beyond the scope of the study to discover the exact scale of ageism encountered by older people in Irish health and social services, but said it was a first step towards auditing age discrimination.

The research, which drew on interviews with 456 older people and 150 healthcare staff, found older people were afraid of becoming ill, being a burden on their families, having to go into institutional care and having a lack of money.

Eileen McGlone, senior researcher for QE5, which conducted the study, said older people were faced with a number of problems accessing health-care services, including staff shortages and a tendency for GPs to concentrate on ‘symptom management’ instead of treatment.

Older people were also faced with age limits on services. For example, the age restriction on breast cancer screening is 65 across the country, while the report found in one health board the cut-off point for cardiac treatment was 82.

Older people faced difficulty attending appointments due to lack of transport, and elderly patients in hospitals were referred to as “bed blockers”, the report found.

Ageism, which refers to deeply-rooted negative beliefs about older people, and which may lead to discrimination, was the result of a fear of growing old and the emphasis on youth culture and economic productivity, the report said.

Ageism in the health and social services was “indirect and implicit”, the council’s chairwoman Eibhlin Byrne said. She called for legislation to ensure that older people were treated equally.

“We feel strongly that a more integrated service to older people would allow them to remain longer in their own communities,” she added.

Mamo McDonald, from the Age and Opportunity organisation, said she had experienced prejudice because of her age. She said after being examined by a registrar for arthritis she was told: “Of course, Ms McDonald, this has got more to do with your vintage than anything else.”

She said she was waiting four years for another appointment which she was told would take four weeks.

She called for greater respect for the rights of older people, for couples to be accommodated together in care and for privacy for people in hospitals when they were dying.

Responding to the report on ageism, Health Minister Mary Harney said older people deserved to be treated with dignity and respect in the health services. She said the report would be studied by the Health Service Executive, which has statutory responsibility for providing health services.