Then only the coronavirus, Ivan Wolffers Emeritus Professor of Health Care. We are ready, weared and of little use. And the hugs we relied on are moving less and less in our direction.

It looks like years ago. Before the virus took over power in our society, I watched a television program about our monarch's apologies to the country where — much longer ago — a war was waged to put an end to colonial rule. It sounds unlikely now how stubbornly our country went into all sorts of bends for seventy-five years to get out of a civilised pardon and with a childish 'but they started first' or 'but they also did bad things' to get rid of the responsibility for the behavior of her soldiers.

In that program all kinds of people came to the floor who had to say something about it, some more meaningful than the other. There was a man who had been a soldier in that battle himself and was now at least ninety-five years old. He followed the conversation and wrote down what was said. Yes, as you get older, you do so just to be sure, fearing that you may not respond well to the question asked, and you must also make sure that your remarks are in line with the conversation and you do not start talking about something that was already spoken about in fleeting haste.

I saw the table guests in this news show look at each other meaningful, agonating at the slowness of the brave soldier who had come to take his personal responsibility. He was in military intelligence. And what would he have done there? Well, he hit those boys. Was it there? The news train thundered and before he could explain what he meant by “hitting”, the camera turned away again and I thought I heard someone at the table whispering to another 'what a hoar'. Stupid of course that those experienced people who regularly sit at such a drink table do not realize that if they have received a transmitter on their clothes, the whole of the Netherlands can listen in.

I thought I saw the old soldier collapse and felt for him. After a short piece of black-and-white news news news, probably showing a burning village — I don't remember — the man was moved to an inconspicuous place in the audience. His transmitter was taken from him.

For some time now, I fear that something like this will happen to me. And with me, all the people who get older don't try to make their teeth whitened so much that they glisten lighter than the light in their eyes and who don't have such a fast and supple brain anymore to be the clever in the classroom very quickly. We are ready, weared and of little use. And the hugs we relied on are moving less and less in our direction.

The virus that is not up to anything and wants nothing, seems to have come as a shortcut. The infection can affect anyone, but death is selective. Who is old gets infected faster, dies faster from treatment. The whole country is now coming up for the anonymous elder. The country has expressed its solidarity with the people who were born a long time ago and also with the care staff who go through the fire for parents, grandmothers and grandmothers as well as for the young people who usually seem to get rid of it with a cough, fever and a snot-nosed nose.

As if God was a gifted screenwriter, he built an extra tension line into the script of the virus story. It all still needs to be done with limited resources. Will there be enough beds? Will an IC bed be found on time when it's your turn? And then the tests and the mouthcaps. Will they arrive in time before the care of our ageing population falls into collapse?

Every night we go to bed with another huge cliffhanger. And to realize that this tension would not have been necessary, because we knew for years that waves of pandemics would come upon us — or rather our lifestyle — but cut back with the slogan 'Less staff and less investment is better for care because it would be less will be more efficient'. The care deteriorated, was not prepared for anything, and the vulnerable were the victims of this. The advent of the virus reveals this in sharp detail. And the elderly are on the fault line.

As the ever-increasing new mortality rates are announced daily and the boys and girls from the news tell that the majority of people turned out to be over 80 years old, a muffled sigh of relief goes through the country. Fortunately, those who are young will emerge from this difficult time with their new immunity and live on.

I'm reminded of that old soldier, that old hooker, who doesn't tell his story efficiently enough and who we prefer to be #troeteloudje behind the window waving in self-confinement to the grandchildren who are standing downstairs in the parking lot of the apartment. Why save if you don't want to listen to them anymore?

You need to learn to be old. A pass back every day. You get names mixed up, don't know what to say so quickly, your transmitter is taken away from you, and eventually you're an anonymous resident, a number, something on a chart that's shown in a news program. I often read that after the visit of the virus nothing will be the same. Is that also allowed in relation to the care of the elderly? Can we reorient ourselves in their place in society?

Source: Joopbnnvara