Island shouldn't forget about its retired citizens
WE ARE constantly hearing in the media that there is an ageing population and Guernsey in particular will struggle to care for this generation in the future. What they actually mean is we are costing them too much and never mind we have paid taxes from aged 14 or 15 and not the 20-plus that students now do. We have done without to put a roof over our head and feed our children when they came along, no social housing for most of us when we got married. We had no baby at aged 16 with no father in sight. Who actually costs more are the alcoholics, the drug addicts and the single mums who in most cases have no intention of finding a job when their child gets to age seven. The latter gets housed and everything paid for them and go on holidays abroad, use the latest iPhone and smoke. I know as I travel on the buses enough and hear it all.
Today I go to get my repeat prescriptions and find we are not an independent island at all but sheep following the UK as I now cannot have the pain patches I usually have, as I hear on the national news the UK have stopped them too. I have coeliacs disease and, yes, you can buy items in the supermarkets, but at least twice the price of normal stuff. That has been stopped on prescription in the UK also and like sheep we will follow too I am sure.
So stop the medication that keeps people comfortable and in less pain and you will then have a person who goes downhill rapidly and they then get depressed and stay in more and no one notices and you have one less to worry about paying for in the future, is that what you really want? We are getter cheaper and cheaper drugs that are not even in English on the packaging, and do we know what is in them? It is as bad as me buying medication off the internet, which we are warned not to do. Cheap means less good quality ingredients and the illness is not treated as well.
The retired people have helped make Guernsey the great place it is so please look after them properly and stop making them feel they are a burden.
Name and address withheld.
