Jonathan Kay on elder abuse: It doesn’t get any worse than this
Nov 17, 2011
Today’s Toronto Star features a sickening story about a 71-year-old woman raped in a nursing home. As awful as this is, the greater tragedy is that for every reported case like this, there no doubt are dozens more that never get reported.
Good on the Star for putting this on the front page. The truth of it is that editors often see little payback in senior-abuse stories, because society has an ageist double-standard in this area. If a child gets abused or harmed in daycare, it’s banner news across all media platforms. But the elder stuff is relegated to special “investigative” reports that win awards, but don’t pull in the readers in the way that child-centered stories do.
The reason: Most children are lucky enough to have a built-in constituency group — their parents. But the sort of elderly people who end up in homes where workers are abusive and incompetent (something that would never be tolerated in childcare facilities) often tend to be childless, or effectively abandoned by their family. (This was not the case in Danae Chambers’ case, I hasten to point out.)
This is one of the few areas where the only real solution is big government: To put more resources into elder-care facilities — including investigators who can snuff out the sort of deviants who assaulted Ms. Chambers, before they commit their crimes.
SOURCE: The National Post
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