There’s no excuse for abuse

The message – ‘there’s no excuse for abuse’ – was heard loud and clear at South Australia’s Aged Rights Advocacy Service (ARAS) World Elder Abuse Awareness Day conference in Adelaide yesterday (14 June 2012).

Conference delegates, along with DPS News, attended the one-day conference yesterday to mark World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, which is held worldwide today (15 June 2012).

ARAS chief executive, Marilyn Crabtree, welcomed delegates before warning that “we face many challenges in the future” as the population ages and older Australians’ wealth grows.

Referring to the common incidence of financial abuse among the elderly, Ms Crabtree said “we’ve all heard the saying, ‘there’s gold in the old’.

“As the ageing population increases, it is anticipated the incidence of abuse in older people will increase particularly in regard to the ‘older old’ people.

“Older people are at risk of abuse by someone they should be able to trust. Elder abuse is under recognised, unreported and under-prosecuted.

“We talk about the epidemic of dementia, but we don’t talk about the epidemic of abuse,” she stated.

Sharing Ms Crabtree’s vision for a world free of elder abuse was South Australian Minister for Health and Ageing, John Hill, who attended the conference to give his formal address.

“I have a commitment to uphold the safety of older South Australians. The right to be free from abuse applies whether our older citizens are at home, out about in the community, in hospital or in residential aged care. This is an absolute,” Mr Hill said.

“Sadly, elder abuse has been a great concern and occurs when trust is abused, resulting in harm to the older person. This harm can come either from psychological, social, sexual or physical abuse.

“While older people can be abused by strangers, often enough it sadly and tragically occurs within the family. Elder abuse is a hot topic.”

Stay tuned next week for more DPS News coverage on the ARAS conference, including the important role GPs play in identifying and ‘speaking up’ about abuse in older patients and the role aged care organisations have in also identifying and stopping the abuse of older people by family or paid carers.