Much to my chagrin, nobody accused me of
jumping the queue when COVID-19 vaccine doses were first offered to “the
elderly” at the end of March as the first modest COVAX shipment arrived.
What ever happened to “you does look good for
your age” and all that? True, I had myself listened attentively for a precise
definition of the designation (“the elderly”) when it was clear that anticipated
slow vaccine supplies would invariably require an age/health condition
hierarchy for administering such protection.
I had already been through the National
Insurance drill which sets parameters involving two milestones – (i) reaching
60 and (ii) realising that you are 65 and should not be working so hard.
No, I am not yet at phase two, thank you. I, in
fact, made it to phase one three years ago
But youthful myopia – both as private
individuals and as states - has you feeling your time never comes.
There is a parallel with an exchange I had with
a politically appointed senior energy advisor some years ago who advised that
T&T should not worry about oil and gas reserves “running out.”
“As long as the planet remains viable, we will
have oil,” he said.
Then, you reach 60, and the TTARP card you got
at 50 is no longer a social media joke and you have worked overseas, and
freelanced, and people had your NIS number all mixed up and you realise you are
pretty much among those “Scottie” James O’Neil Lewis described as the
officially “forgotten”.
“One gets the impression,” the late diplomat
told me 21 year ago, “there is a feeling that people are living too long.”
Relatedly, it was my father, many years before
this, explaining to me exactly what a late friend of his did professionally as
an “actuary”.
As an insurance man, Dad expressed much of this
in measures of financial risk. Among the things he told me was that his friend
had more than once expressed concern about the eventual “bunching” of both
private and state benefits to the elderly.
Sooner or later, he surmised, the country’s
ability to sustain largely non and partially contributory support for those who
had reached the final phases of their lives would be depleted, especially
within the context of a country where there is a widening gap between the young
and an increasing number of old people who are tending to live longer and
longer.
Such a revelation more than 40 years ago came
to mind when I read Raphael John-Lall’s Sunday Guardian interview with
gerontologist, Dr Jennifer Rouse.
“The last cohort of the “baby boomer”
generation, those born between 1946 and 1964, are due to retire in 2024,
followed closely by the Generation X-ers, a significant number of who are
contract workers,” the article says.
To locate specific political responsibility for
such an oversight is particularly problematic. Current protestations over the
inevitability of extending the retirement age to 65, for purposes of NIS
benefits, ought not to include a partisan flavour if people are inclined to be
honest. Nobody seemed to seriously note what had been happening – multiple
studies and seminars later.
An IPS feature published in my name in 1999
points to the fact that 21 years ago there had been concern by people such as
Rouse and others that by the year 2005, people over the age of 60 would have
accounted for 20 percent of the population – a situation that will eventually
bring into jeopardy the ability of the state system to continue payment of
benefits, at set levels, to the aged.
Today’s actual statistic for the elderly is
closer to 15 percent, but it persists at a time when the stresses of the
pandemic period are accentuating the impact of seriously compromised
macro-economic conditions, and the fact of an ageing population.
The options remain limited. I can’t see how we
can escape an effort to protect the integrity of national insurance as a
reliable source of support to the aged. The real issue, though, would be to
assure us that “we” won’t be consigned to the ranks of the forgotten.
There is evidence that a measure of forgetting
occurs. There are even those who believe some culling during this crisis might
well be a blessing in disguise. The words of Dr O’Neil Lewis bear repeating:
“There is a feeling that people are living too long.” Are we?
