Covid-19 coronavirus: Don't dare write off elderly people in care homes like my 97-year-old mum – Steve Cardownie

Elderly people must not be written off in the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak (Picture: Donald MacLeod) | JPIMedia

My mother currently resides in a care/nursing home in the Highlands where she moved to some years ago and I can fully relate to the despair and concern felt by many others who have relatives or loved ones in similar circumstances.

Jenny will be 97 years old this Hallowe’en so the threat that currently exists is, to her, very real indeed and one which I fervently hope will be successfully repelled.

There is a temptation among some people to effectively write off older people as not really meriting much concern.

Such phrases as they “have had a good kick o’ the ba’” or that they are currently residing in “God’s Waiting Room” are often used to describe some of the elderly population and whilst they may contain a grain of truth, they are still unfair for all that.

Now I am not equating the death of a person in their nineties to the loss of a child who is just starting out in life, far from it, but they should still command our respect and concern.

They are mothers, fathers. grandmothers and grandfathers as well as great grandparents after all and will be sorely missed by family and friends alike when they go.

My mother was in the Wrens and my father was in the Royal Navy where they served in the Second World War. Her life bringing up a young family in Leith through good times and bad is peppered with happy times as well as sad and will not be forgotten by me or my siblings.

Ok, she is nearly 97 and has “a good kick o’ the ba’” but that doesn’t mean that I and others like will me will not “have a wee greet” at our elderly loved one’s passing if this b*****d of a virus does its worst.

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