The thoughts of a third world child…….LONGEVITY!

A guest post by Sevika Stensby

I remember, when I moved to Norway several years ago, feeling in total awe of my new home and how much regard they had for their nation. The social welfare here is probably second to none.

Within a very short period of time my Norwegian husband and I invested in our first apartment together. It was a completely unambitious bid on a very basic, old apartment...pretty much like most people here start out, 72sqm (one fourth of a house containing 4 apartments of equal size) of our very own space…we had great ambitions to renovate it completely ourselves. Needless to say, the extreme DIY culture here was also nothing short of amazement for me.

Within an incredibly short space of time it became apparent that all 3 neighbours in the house had lived in the house since it was built in 1954. They were by this time all pensioners and well into the years of the senior citizen.

We were a young strong couple that had just moved in, they saw the obvious advantages of this. The grass, that you can pretty much sit and watch physically grow here in the summer season due to everything being so accelarated (the summers are 2 months long at best), needed to be clipped regularly. Our elderly neighbours had neither the strength nor the interest in their part of the obligation. This naturally fell on our shoulders. Our summers were consumed with lawnmowing and gardening of which I in all my life had not seen the like (ofcourse in South Africa we all have gardener or even two to take care of this, never having to spare a thought for how one acquires a pretty garden).

The families of these seniors living in the building never seemed to visit, or at least with no real regularity. They seemed thrilled that there was a child in the house and within the first month of moving in my 5 year old had 4 pairs of wool socks. They also were keen on inviting me over to coffee as frequently as possible. I often accepted and sat through hours of coffee drinking and cake eating (I gained 10kg in my first year here). My Norwegian lessons had also started in earnest.

The families of these seniors never seemed to visit. My daughter was regularly invited upstairs for traditional Norwegian dinners to the point that it became a normal programme.

The families of the seniors never seemed to visit. I would walk across the hall to Ruth with baked goods and listen for hours as she cried about her aches and pains and loneliness since the death of her husband several years before. My heart broke each and every time.

The families of these seniors never seemed to visit. Summer came again and my child was taken on her first trip to the nearby waterwonderland, not by me but by by the active 75 year old neighbour upstairs. She had grandchildren, they could not make it.

Norway has an admirable health policy regarding active seniors. Their desire is for the seniors to make use of the resources they have to live a more active life. They also want to encourage them to live at home for as long as they possibly can. There are several challenges for innovation brought on by the incredible longevity we witness here in Norway as opposed to Africa, where the population is increasingly younger. Challenges for the health care sector are the most predominant.
The resources provided seem extravagant to the third world child that I am. Home assistance as often as one requires it! The struggle for manpower in the health care sector, however, creates an even bigger challenge. Those working as home assistants to the aged have barely enough time to reach all those seniors they need to see in a day for the delivery of a meal or getting them into a shower, how are they possibly to spare the time for a chat.

Nursing homes, another great offer the health care sector provides the aged, are also understaffed to the degree that the assistants there have plenty to do just doling out medication and taking care of the visit to the toilet. They simply don't have the time or capacity for the social aspect of caring for the aged.

Where are the families of these people?

At home in South Africa, needless to say, there is no social welfare of any significance. Specifically within the Indian community, it is a very common and natural thing that when the grandparents get old they move in with either a daughter or a son or have medium term stays with all their children on a rotational basis. There is care from both sides. Grandparents are actively contributing to the home in various ways. They are involved with the children and there is a general feeling of having people around who care about your well-being.
In today's world, there needs to be a double-income to survive and educate your kids. Having grandma at home also helps working mom and dad.
As grandparents grow older and need more physical help their children and grandchildren are there to give them all the support they need. They live a full and purposeful life right until they take their last breath. They are loved and cared for and never have to feel lonely.
I lived a life like this with my grandma. I still have fond memories of the old stories she told me and all the culture and tradition she passed on to me. I would not choose to have it any other way.

My husband, by comparison, barely visited his grandparents on the maternal side. They were strangers that lived in an old age home. The first and last time I saw them was a month before they died and we then attended their funeral. What their everyday was like I will never know.

On the paternal side, I insisted that we visit every weekend as we lived in the same town. Grandma there was tired of living alone and desperate for it all to be over and done with even when I entered the picture. She felt that she was cursed with good health and didn't think that purely wishing herself dead would take the pain of loneliness away. She lived at home and enjoyed good health until she died at the age of 95, truly as desired by the health policy.

Many may argue that this is not the norm. I have, however, witnessed far too much of this in Norway to agree. It seems to me to be more the norm than an exception.

What is so wonderful about living such a long life then? Why is it such a proud fact that we have such longevity figures? Do we know what this means for the elderly on an everyday basis? Do families here forget that they have a social and familial responsibility that falls outside the health policy of the country?

Does having an excess of wealth and the ability to provide such resources to the nation also have a negative impact on the social responsibilities of the individual? Meaning, has it become such that because we belive that our elderly are economically provided for we don't have to worry about anything else at all?

To some degree I even understand euthanasia. I am not saying that I advocate it, just that I understand it!