Japan’s demographic crisis is playing out even behind bars. The number of elderly inmates has quadrupled over the past 20 years. Around a fifth of people over 65 live below the poverty line, struggling to make ends meet. Some go to extraordinary lengths to improve their circumstances, deliberately getting caught shoplifting in the hope of landing in prison. There, they can access a secure place to live, proper meals, and medical care – basic necessities often denied to them outside.
It takes money, training, facilities and willingness all together to care for the elderly. Miss any one of those and it all turns to crap.
First of all, people have to want to care for old people. If you force them, it quickly turns to abuse.
Second, those people need to be trained in dealing with the issues which come with being old: weakening body, weakening mind and being heavy as lead. It can be stressful as hell and it has been known for a caregiver to die of exhaustion before the elder they were in charge of.
Third, the facilites need equipment necessary to assist the needs of the elderly for mobility, sanitation, rest.
Old people need exercise. Physical and mental. Declinement means an overall variety of immediate care needs to be readily available.All that stuff costs money. But it has to be seen as an investment into the workforce. All the children and grandchildren who aren’t busy with caring for the elderly can go out there and work, spend and keep the wheels turning.
In a better world, that would be enough. In this one, we have wannabe trilionaires.
