“Aged care – scenes at the end of life and the beginning of understanding”
Years ago in another, younger life, I worked in a marketing role and one of my first clients was a large, well known battery manufacturer.
The first thing I learned about batteries is that they are what’s known as a ‘grudge purchase’. Nobody wants to buy them; everybody wishes they didn’t need them and they serve only a functional purpose.
They don’t taste good or enhance your appearance. They don’t make you feel better or seem clever or interesting. They have no aesthetic or decorative value and are in fact invisible as they work.
As consumer objects, batteries have no intrinsic value. They are merely a necessary means to an end. If you want the gadget to work and it has no other power source to make that happen, then you have no choice but to buy the battery.
This unfortunate plight for the common battery always seemed a bit unfair. The people who made batteries didn’t work any less hard than people who made dresses or motor cars; the people who designed, researched, developed and tested them were as clever and devoted to meeting their exacting standards of excellence as the people who researched and designed other technological accoutrements of modern life.
Batteries didn’t destroy relationships or lead to family breakdowns.
Still, nobody was interested in batteries until they needed them and usually then, it was an important and pressing need. As so they were a begrudging necessity. Good batteries were important and necessary. Bad batteries that didn’t do the job or last the distance were unacceptable.
Grudge service
Years later, writing about ageing issues and aged care in particular, it occurred to me that I was back with the plight of the battery.
It occurred to me that aged care faced a similar challenge to batteries and arguably worse. Aged care too was seen as a ‘grudge purchase’. Nobody wants to ‘need’ aged care but everyone wants to know that it is available when required. When you do need it, the need is often urgent and the expectations are very high.
Still, nobody really wants to talk about it. The media is only ever interested in scandals. And so we find ourselves living in a world where we don’t know much about aged care at all, we’re not encouraged to talk about it in any normal conversational sense or ask questions and pretty much the only mainstream impressions we have are skewed by sensational ‘bad news’ stories.
It’s been something of a mission of mine for many years now to talk openly about ageing issues, of life and death and, yes, about aged care. Only by acknowledging it, questioning it, understanding what influences it, how it works… and by discussing it, will we ever get the best possible care when we need it.
It’s a roundabout way of introducing the latest play by veteran Australian playwright, Alan Hopgood.
Yes, a play. For theatrical presentation, with actors and a stage and sets.
“Do you know me?” is the newest edition to the HealthPlay series written and usually performed by Hopgood, best remembered for his play ‘And the Big Men Fly’ and his roles in television series like Bellbird and Prisoner.
“Do you know me,” was commissioned by The Australian Institute for Patient and Family Centred Care with support from Mercy Health.
This play explores the importance of seeing all people for the person they are, not their age or diagnosis. Hooray!
It highlights the importance of knowing people better and not isolating them from daily activities they may have previously taken for granted. The play builds on the success of another HealthPlay play, “Hear Me” which explores what happens to people in the acute hospital system when patients’ voices are not really listened to.
The increasing number of aged people in our population will see more elderly people seeking care. It’s inevitable and it’s in our best interest to ensure that that care and service is the best it can possibly be.
This play is really aimed at people who work in aged care or are professionally involved in some capacity. “The purpose of “Do you know me?” is to use the unique capacity of live performance to influence and potentially transform aged care through provoking audiences to think, reflect on current practice and to consider how to do things better,” says the blurb from the website.
But my own view is that we all could do with a bit more understanding about this critical part of our health and social service system so we can be emboldened to take what steps are required to make aged care as good as it can possibly be. And not just something we’d rather not discuss. This provocative play aims at improving communication between staff and residents by illustrating that every person has a story to tell.
If you would like to investigate having the play performed somewhere near you – with the opportunity to ask questions and hear from experts as well, you can contact playsy@aipfcc.org.au or call 0425762350.
