In recent weeks, many media have reported on the seriousness of the impact of the pandemic on Quebec seniors. Today, our society is beginning to fully realize that its impacts far exceed the terrible devastation caused by the COVID-19 virus in the daily lives and living environments of our elderly fellow citizens.
Posted at 1:00 p.m.
Indeed, our elders have experienced the health restrictions that have been put in place to respond to the pandemic. Despite the deconfinement measures announced for the next few weeks, this isolation experienced by too many elderly people continues. It is the source of a powerful feeling of loneliness which has caused significant distress in many of them.
What’s more, this type of misfortune, often associated with mental health, has had an impact on the physical and overall health of many. Deprived of outings, social contacts, physical activities, the outdoors and all the stimuli essential to maintaining good health in old age, many have been sucked into a significant decline in their condition.
This text is not intended to discredit our public decision-makers who have been forced to manage the most important health crisis of the century, despite themselves. However, it aims to emphasize the importance of social contacts for human well-being, particularly among seniors. This is a reality that our organization, with its more than 2,500 active volunteers in the field, has witnessed for nearly 60 years and that transcends time.
Long before the arrival of the pandemic, one in five people aged 65 and over reported having no close friends in their network and 30% of seniors were at risk of suffering from isolation.
Thus, the pandemic and the isolation measures that accompany it have exacerbated a reality that was already very present.
After two years of the pandemic, when deconfinement is well underway, we have to ask ourselves how, as a society, we are going to collectively break this very damaging isolation for those to whom we are so indebted. These people are people in their own right. They have dreams and are in love with the same desire for happiness that we all share. Their needs far exceed those of being fed and housed.
As a society and as individuals, we must therefore change our outlook and stop treating seniors as patients. It is essential to include them in the decisions that concern them and that have an impact on their lives, on their mental health and on their happiness. Not only on their physical health.
During the past two years, due to sanitary measures, we have all had a good idea of the loneliness and distress that many elderly people feel today. It is now important to think better about the way we treat them, the ways in which we can offer them a benevolent presence and how we can, individually and collectively, embellish their old age and break their loneliness.
Solutions exist, and many of them are not necessarily expensive. In general, everyone can take better care of seniors by giving them a little more time and systematically including them in their social life. Picking up a senior to have them participate in an activity and then returning to drive them back afterwards, or even phoning a person who lives alone more often are gestures that can change the situation. It is now up to you, dear fellow citizens, to implement such small gestures to make a difference.