Everyone is worthy of dignity (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Everyone is worthy of dignity

8:39am Monday 9th January 2012 in Our View By Telegraph & Argus

It is six months since we launched our With Respect campaign, which aimed to raise awareness of the plight of older people who are too often being given a raw deal in society.

The story that launched our campaign was that of Betty West, whose daughter was horrified by the way she said the 85-year-old had been treated in her final days in hospital.

It has to be said that great strides have been taken, especially in the district’s hospitals in Bradford and Airedale, to improve care for older people, and they should be rightly commended for that.

And it is good to see that Prime Minister David Cameron has followed the lead of our With Respect campaign and pledged more dignity and care for older hospital patients while on a visit to hospitals in the North West yesterday.

But our campaign was always about casting our net wider than just the hospitals, and there is still a lot of work to be done to ensure that our older citizens are treated with the respect they deserve.

It is the very least we should expect that the senior members of society are fed, sheltered, clothed and generally treated with the same dignity we would afford any other member of society, be they in hospital, care home, living with relatives, or residing alone.

We will continue to highlight injustices – and give credit where it’s due, as with the hospitals – in our With Respect campaign, until the message has been driven home that everyone – no matter who they are – is worthy of a little dignity.