Growing old: a curse or blessing?

GETTING OLD is nothing new – neither is caring for the elderly. But yet, these days, both seem unusual, even unnatural. To get old in today’s society is to become a burden. And to take care of an older person is to make a big sacrifice – it is an exceptional act. Old people and their caregivers are therefore generally not considered part of normal society – they are in an exclusive group by themselves, suffering by themselves, dragging along in the slow, handicap lane, while everybody else carries on in their meta universe. It is abnormal to get old and just as abnormal to take care of an elderly parent. The experts contributed to the present situation.

Some years ago, smart, over-qualified people started warning us about the "silver tsunami." (Search the term "silver tsunami" on any medical journal database and you will not find a shortage of articles with the phrase in its title.) What were the researchers implying by the metaphor? They meant that a natural disaster was coming driven by a growing older demographic – that in a few years’ time, grey-haired, demented zombies were going to spread over the land and cause a catastrophe, a tsunami. The exponentially growing older population would be like the plague. The demographic shift was not nature – it was a curse, and we needed to get ready for it.

Well, it seems, the curse, the plague, the silver tsunami – call it whatever you want – is here. Ask anyone who works on an adult medicine ward in any hospital: they are drowning in the tsunami. So what are we to do about it?

Build more hospitals? Build more nursing homes (warehouses) to house (shelve) all of the old people? Allow state-sanctioned voluntary euthanasia for those above 75 years old, like the scheme depicted in the Japanese movie Plan 75?

Japan – the third largest economy in the world, and the country with the highest percentage of older people (40 per cent of its population is over the age of 60) – is sinking in the so-called silver tsunami. Worried about the direction her country was heading, Chie Hayakawa, director, said in a UK Guardian interview about her movie Plan 75: “It’s too real to be sci-fi. I specifically made this film to avoid a programme like this becoming a reality.”

She added: “A state-sanctioned solution like Plan 75 is far from impossible in a country that is growing ever more intolerant to socially weak people: the elderly, the disabled and the people who have no money.”

At least Plan 75 was a fictional movie.

An Atlantic article, “Canada is killing itself,” published two months ago, wasn’t. It was a real news article about medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in Canada – and it was disturbing. You can read the article and come to your own conclusions – the purpose of this column is not to talk about MAiD, but to describe the present situation.

In 2025, people are talking about how Canada and Japan – two of the wealthiest, most developed countries in the world – are killing off their most vulnerable citizens, the majority of them, old. More than 50 per cent of MAiD deaths in Canada in 2023 were among people over 75 years old.

“We don’t know how to treat the elderly here – indigenous people do,” a geriatrician in Canada once told me.

What is so different in indigenous culture? There is no silver tsunami.

There is only a circle: the circle of life. In indigenous culture, getting old is normalised. No, it is more than normalised: it is revered. The individual is part of the community; the community is part of the environment; the environment is part of the universe. Each component a cog on a wheel that is in continuous motion. There is no room for ageism in this arrangement.

Life in modern Canada is the opposite. There are no circles – only long, multilane highways. Everybody stays in their lane. Choose your lane – the career lane, the retirement lane, the nursing home lane, the MAiD lane – and stay out of people’s way. Don’t look in the rear-view and side mirrors – focus on yourself: do yoga, drink matcha, travel, play golf. It seems to work perfectly fine – until the car breaks down.

So, growing old can either be a curse or blessing, depending on which Canada one belongs to.

What’s the takeaway from the Canadian and Japanese stories?

To survive the silver tsunami, the plague of ageism first has to be wiped away – otherwise we are all headed to Plan 75.

Taureef Mohammed is a physician from TT working in Canada

E-mail: taureef_im@hotmail.com