Facing the challenges of aging - Blueprints for a new, older Ireland

Three health reports in recent days point to an inevitability facing most of us — old age and the challenges of that journey.

One, a benchmark OECD/EU study, found that Irish men and women now live five years longer than they did in 2000.

A fall in cardiovascular disease-related deaths is the driver of this spectacular extension in such a short time frame.

Despite almost daily charges of dysfunction, our health service is “relatively effective in treating people with threatening conditions”.

This cheering reality is behind the fact that we, along with other western European countries, can expect to live eight years longer than people in Central or Eastern Europe.

It would be churlish not to acknowledge that these advances have been realised in a very difficult environment. Ireland has half the EU average number of hospital beds — 2.6 for every 1,000 people.

That shortage is exacerbated by the fact that we are fifth from the bottom of the EU league for the number of doctors — 2.9 per 1,000 — compared to an EU standard of 3.6. The authors are critical of Ireland’s two-tier service and blame this for poorer outcomes for patients from lower socioeconomic groups.

The report reminds us that this is the only Western European country that does not provide universal primary care. Once again, the health service’s qualities are highlighted, but so, too, is the absence of the political determination to make it fair for all citizens and less fraught for stretched staff.

Another report, from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), looks at end-of-life experiences.

Researchers found that older people face health problems towards the end of life, which, if dealt with better, might not have such a negative impact on their quality of life. It

also found that family members provide 42% of all care received by an older person.

TILDA also found that a high proportion of people who needed home, community, or allied health services could not secure them — between 15% and 30%, depending on the service. Almost half of deaths occurred in hospitals, a high ratio, compared to our peer countries. This clouds end-of-life experiences and it has health-service cost implications too.

A third report focussed on Alzheimer’s and recorded that the incidence of the disease is falling in the UK, probably due to improvements in education, fewer smoking victims, better diet, and exercise.

Research from the University of Cambridge confirmed that the causes of Alzheimer’s are largely unknown, and attempts to develop drugs to fight it are disappointing. Interestingly, it showed again that the more years spent in full-time education, the lower the risk of Alzheimer’s.

These reports are more than relevant to Ireland.

By 2031, there will be nearly 1m people over the age of 65, an increase of 86% since last year, so maybe they should be seen as early blueprints of what we must to do over the coming decades to prepared for the new, older Ireland.

Sadly, our head-in-the-sand response to the looming pensions’ crisis makes it pretty hard to be optimistic.