I recently had a significant birthday, and was back visiting Melbourne, my native city. I don't feel aged or decrepit, but there's no doubt I've reached the point at which a person's fancy heavily turns to thoughts of the future, such as it might be. Discounted, at any rate, with time dwindling fast.
My children are concerned about my old age, I think, and are probably wondering whether I'm going to spend it in Greece or Australia. I always thought I'd return to Melbourne, but at present I'm not so sure. As a young child I lived with my grandparents, and therefore assumed that the concept of three-generation living was natural; now half my life has been lived in Greece, so I am used to the idea that old people live and die at home in the bosom of the family.
Not that I want this for myself. But nor do I want too much of the struggle and regret Disraeli famously mentioned.
So during my return I made it my business to learn a little about changes being made in the area and practice of aged care: I am struck by the resemblance between people in power in Australia, and those deciding policy in Brussels during the long years of the Greek krisi and concomitant austerity.
Both groups seem to be run by accountants manqué, whose chief interest is in cutting costs. The human cost does not seem to be a consideration.
The internet inevitably has a large amount of material about the latest complicated developments in Australian aged care reform. I had read only a smallish amount of this material when I felt a rant coming on. What has happened to the general mindset? To compassion? What has happened to the English language?
Well, I know the dehumanising rot began to set in a long time ago. I have a vision of George Orwell sitting on a cloud and wringing his hands in renewed horror, for now the business model and associated language appears to have taken over the world.
Internet articles bristle with words like gateway, package, providers, key stakeholders, consumer empowered models, and expanded service finders. The reader is also informed that there is to be an exciting shift from a menu style aged care system ...
But some people are not excited at all. Charmaine Crowe, senior advisor to the Combined Pensioners and Superannuants' Association of NSW, says aged care has become more expensive because of the changes, and is now very much a business geared to making profits.
In another document older people express their concern and despair in no uncertain terms: one woman says suicide appears to be her only option.
The matter of telephone screening is of particular concern. In the past community workers have been able to make enquiries on behalf of individuals. Now they can't, because direct contact is required. Some professionals would like administrators to show more empathy, to imagine being someone who doesn't like the phone, is not at all tech savvy, and has little English, despite being in the country for 50 or more years.
Another difficulty is that many of these calls are outsourced to the Philippines or India. The people there may be well-trained, but they cannot hope to understand particular problems associated with an unfamiliar environment.
These views are echoed by those of Helena Kyriazopoulos, president of the Multicultural Communities Council of South Australia. She says a recent survey found that 86 per cent of people of various origins attending day care centres rely very heavily on community workers. Now she fears that accessing the impersonal Gateway will be impossible for many, who will then become increasingly isolated.
In short, the changes in aged care could be counterproductive, as the aims of streamlined access and equity may result instead in the development of barriers and more inequity. Growing old clearly means more hard work, and more adjustment.
The whole business is not for sissies, as I remind myself, ruefully. Again.
Gillian Bouras is an expatriate Australian writer who has written several books, stories and articles, many of them dealing with her experiences as an Australian woman in Greece.