Six elderly people died alone in their homes in Canberra and their bodies were not discovered for a week. One may have laid in her tiny flat for two weeks. Police have no idea where to find the relatives of another, a 74-year-old man found on Sunday.
It shows the underside of our veneer of civilisation. Outwardly we seen society functioning well: people going to work, orderly traffic, communications systems working and so on. But within this society are those whose days are lonely, who worry about where to get food or clothes or with nowhere to call home. It is not only the elderly, but also the young and the psychiatrically disabled who are hidden by the veneer of civilisation. These are the victims of unemployment, the disintegration of the extended family and the inability of government to be a substitute for the extended family and neighbourhood.
The fact that six people have died alone at home in the past week is a terrible indictment of the fragmentation of our society. But it should not be the catalyst for rallying cries that the government must do more. It would mean that government employees should visit every aged person every day, and even then an aged person could die unnoticed for 24 hours.
The sad truth is that the extended family is no longer the force it was in society. There was a time that several generations would live in the same street, if not the same household. In those days it was unthinkable that a member of the family could lie dead for days unnoticed.
Now, there are clear disadvantages to returning to the “”good old days” of the extended family. Aside from the environmental cost and the unsustainability of having the population growth that goes with huge extended families, there is the undesirability of returning to a situation where women were virtual slaves to young children and aging parents.
That said, there are clear disadvantages in expecting government to fill the vacuum of the extended family.
At present, government services do a splendid job in caring for people at home, especially those with health needs. However, it would be an impossible task for government to be a complete substitute for family or neighbourly care.
It is important for communities to create and strengthen links in their own neighbourhoods. That is difficult in the very climate that discourages reaching out to strangers.
There is an appalling Cath-22 here. We are shocked that people can die alone at home and not be noticed for days or weeks, yet our children are taught to mistrust strangers, not to accept sweets from strange men; where men often feel they cannot even say “”hello” to children in their neighbourhood for fear of being branded pedophile; and where everyone is suspicious of every stranger. The trouble with this Catch-22 is that there is no ice-breaking. Every friend was once a stranger. Family, of course, can overcome those fears, but even then there can be a zealot-like fear based on very isolated examples of abuse.
If anything, the six dead old people found alone in their homes in Canberra is the corollary of the climate of suspicion and fear of other humans. Sure, that suspicion and fear has helped guard some vulnerable people in the community, but we are not paying a very heavy price for that.