Humanising the Final Years
Saturday, January 01, 2000
We took our school choir to an old folks home. The clergyman who organised the event asked the children to mingle with the audience after our eight little songs.
I was amazed, and moved, to see that a number of the old folk simply wanted to grasp a child's hand or arm. The accommodation was very good - and I'm sure the medical service would be.
But clearly their greatest lack was human contact.
For better or worse, it has become normal practice these days to send old folks to institutions when they can no longer look after themselves. I reflected on the way back that some of us, teachers and pupils, would end up there too.
I learned a fact of old age - that many of these people were rarely or never visited. And the children, though at first bemused by the unfamiliar experience, learned some compassion. All were uplifted by the experience.
To humanise our final years, as well as our early years, it seems we should establish a practice of having school groups visit the old.
Perhaps each class could adopt a group of aged. If this were done on a regular basis, friendships could be formed. A win-win state of affairs.
Philip O'Carroll