I saw something on Facebook the other night that said "If only the widespread issue of abuse and/or neglect of older people in our communities drew as much national outrage as teachers not being paid".
It's a fair point. Don't get me wrong, teachers have really had a tough timeof it and not getting paid - which for some has been weeks on end - that has got to really hurt. But I hate hearing about older people being taken advantage of or ripped off and it's a serious problem in our country.
In yesterday's Rotorua Daily Post we reported a local carer stole more than $2000 from a pensioner who trusted her with her bank card to go and get her groceries. Teri Wynita Mihinui was sentenced this week and part of her punishment is to pay reparation to her victim. The 70-year-old woman, who was housebound due to ill health, gave her card and pin number to her carer over a three-month period on eight occasions to buy food, but she also withdraw cash. She sneakily hid her offending by collecting the woman's mail and removed her bank statements.
Elderly people are warned against giving their pin details out but this woman felt she could trust her carer. Our older citizens are a trusting bunch, probably because they grew up in an era when people respected other people's belongings.
As a teenager, I used to help my best friend do the local paper run at Timaru Hospital. There were many sick elderly people in the wards and their trust in us was immense. From their sick beds, they would tell us to get their wallets out of their bags and take the change for the newspaper. Either that or they would count out the 50c required using 5c pieces.
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Of course we never took advantage of this, spending twice as long doing the paper run handing back money or getting their money for them. Nationwide, elder abuse and neglect prevention services receive more than 1600 referrals each year, with the most commonly reported types being financial abuse and psychological abuse. That is an average of six calls each day. In more than half of these cases, abuse or neglect is confirmed. World Elder Abuse Awareness Day is on Saturday so I urge you to take the time to do something nice for our older generation.
