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Groups Home in on Elder Abuse
By Sue Neales, The Mercury
Australia
July 19, 2005
Elderly Tasmanians are being abused in their thousands, in suburbs both well-off and poor.
This is the view of Council on the Ageing Tasmania president John MacKean, confirming statistics presented to a national conference on disability and ageing in Hobart yesterday suggesting up to 12,000 elderly Tasmanians are abused yearly.
Mr MacKean said his organisation was working with the police, the Nursing Association, the Guardianship Board and Advocacy Tasmania to come up with a range of recommendations on elder abuse to present to the State Government later this year.
He estimates 5-8 per cent of older Tasmanians suffer some form of abuse, mistreatment or exploitation -- be it physical, emotional or financial.
With 68,790 Tasmanians currently aged 65 years or older, the Council on the Ageing's figures suggest between 3300 and 5500 of this group are likely to be abused.
But Mr MacKean said the incidence of elder abuse was no higher in Tasmania than in other states.
"This is a very difficult problem that is extremely difficult to identify and deal with," he said. "It almost always involves carers -- most often within the family -- and is usually caused by a carer becoming so frustrated, angry or tired that they just snap."
Mr MacKean said it was understandable that dealing with people who were frail, dependent, confused and often cantankerous was demanding and thankless.
"They are not always nice and their behaviour can be a real problem for you," he said.
"It is very easy to become irritated and frustrated when someone is incontinent, has dementia and often behaves in totally daft ways.
"What I am saying is that elder abuse is understandable -- but I am definitely not saying that ever makes it justified."
Mr MacKean did not, however, agree with Lillian Jeter, executive director of the national Elder Abuse Prevention Association, that mandatory reporting laws were the solution. He said there were enormous problems with mandatory reporting of such complicated situations.
Defamation was one legal issue, but so were other factors such as hazy memory of the elderly people involved and their general confusion.
"The problem is these cases are so hard to prove," Mr MacKean said.
He said the Council on the Ageing and Advocacy Tasmania were planning a seminar on elder abuse later this year to come up with ways to lessen its occurrence. He believes the best solution is not prosecution after the event but prevention before the abuse occurs.
This may mean providing more respite for stressed and tired carers or encouraging older Tasmanians to discuss with their family enduring power of attorney before any signs of dementia appear.
Mr MacKean said many adult children who abused their dependent parents had been victims of parental abuse when they were young.
"But there are not certainties or any boundaries when you are talking about elder abuse; it happens as often in the homes of the well-off as it does in working-class suburbs," he said.
In response to the publicity surrounding the problem of elder abuse, Greens health spokesman Tim Morris yesterday called for the State Government to investigate the possibility of introducing mandatory reporting laws.
"Just as we have in recent years deemed it necessary to have a mandatory reporting system to improve the protection of children, it is equally important that we have a similar system for that other vulnerable group, the elderly," Mr Morris said.
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