No longer satisfied with lounging on the beach in some Florida resort, today's Gen-50plus are opting for more exotic destinations when they travel. Trips to Asia, Africa, South America are on the bucket-lists of many Boomers seeking to experience new cultures, adventures and personal challenges. Opportunities to live, work and play anywhere in the world are the reality for today's generation of young adults, and an increasing number of their parents also want to play in and explore the global village.
Today's Boomers are already beginning to dominate the foreign travel market, and that shift promises to increase exponentially as the Gen-50plus population grows.
"This generation is more educated, has more disposable income, has more available time for leisure and travel and is more likely to have engaged in international travel earlier in life than preceding generations. Data suggest that seniors are neither deterred from travel by chronic health conditions, nor adequately prepared," says a recent report by the Public Health Agency of Canada.
A report sends out a cautionary note to Boomers planning to travel to foreign shores. Older people travelling abroad face a number of health risks, including more danger of blood clots on long flights, negative reactions to tropical disease vaccines, greater vulnerability to infectious diseases, diminished immune systems that weaken the protection offered by vaccines and increased complications for seniors with chronic health problems. For example, the threat of serious complications from malaria nearly doubles to 61% among those over 60 comparabled to adults generally. And the vaccine for yellow fever, which is recommended for travel in Africa, can cause rare but potentially fatal neurological side effects, with the risk almost tripling for those over 70.
Do these increased health risks mean older adults should go back to the quiet beaches of Florida? Not at all. They do, however, need to be more aware of the risks and better prepared when they travel. They should, for instance, carry detailed medical information with them about their health conditions and make sure they have enough medication to last their entire trip.
This information appears in a National Post article by Tom Blackwell, July 22/11 that can be read at:
Bucket-list pensioners packing health risks.
Read the Public Health Agency of Canada report.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
It's time for Gen-50plus to press for reforms to Canada's Health Care System
Recent studies of Canada's ailing health care system are showing that too many hospital beds are being taken by older adults waiting to get into a long-term care home, or who are staying in hospitals because there are insufficient community support services to care for them if they return home. These older adults are known ingraciously as "bed blockers". They are taking beds that are needed by acute care and post-operative patients whose own access to timely health care is being postponed due to a lack of a bed. It's a vicious cycle that is not benefitting anyone, and turning our precious health care services into a nasty mess.
Pouring more money into the system really isn't the answer. In Ontario, we already spend about 48% of the government's budget on health care. A recent article in the Ottawa Citizen notes that many seniors waiting for a spot in a nursing home are languishing in expensive and scare hospital beds, and that that number is getting worse, in spite of all the extra funding that is being put into community health services designed to keep the seniors in their homes. In Eastern Ontario, 16% of hospital beds are occupied by seniors who should be elsewhere, up from 14% in 2008.
It's time for Gen-50plus to start speaking up in favour of reforms to the health care system that will truly make health care more easily accessible to themselves, and to everyone else. Dealing with the question of how to manage the health care services of this growing demographic must be a priority. And it should not include throwing more money into the black hole that has become Ontario's health care system. The province needs to address the shortage of long-term care beds as well as making it a priority to improve community-based health care services that enable the aging population to remain in their homes for as long as possible. It's got to be far cheaper to provide services to people in their homes, than in a hospital - which is the most expensive alternative.
A recent column by Barbara Kay in the National Post talks about today's Zoomers (Boomers with Zip) and notes that "health care is uppermost in our minds. Wellness spas are hot. And Google "discount heart surgery" : you'll get two million hits. Look for Boomer selfishness to end medicare as we know it: if we can't get the care we want here, we'll buy it in India." If we can buy it in India, why don't we start demanding the right to buy it in Ontario? Why don't we have the right to choose our own health care services and providers? It's time for Gen-50plus to stand up and start demanding the kind of health care we want and deserve, and for the right to pay for it ourselves if we want to.
Comments?
Pouring more money into the system really isn't the answer. In Ontario, we already spend about 48% of the government's budget on health care. A recent article in the Ottawa Citizen notes that many seniors waiting for a spot in a nursing home are languishing in expensive and scare hospital beds, and that that number is getting worse, in spite of all the extra funding that is being put into community health services designed to keep the seniors in their homes. In Eastern Ontario, 16% of hospital beds are occupied by seniors who should be elsewhere, up from 14% in 2008.
It's time for Gen-50plus to start speaking up in favour of reforms to the health care system that will truly make health care more easily accessible to themselves, and to everyone else. Dealing with the question of how to manage the health care services of this growing demographic must be a priority. And it should not include throwing more money into the black hole that has become Ontario's health care system. The province needs to address the shortage of long-term care beds as well as making it a priority to improve community-based health care services that enable the aging population to remain in their homes for as long as possible. It's got to be far cheaper to provide services to people in their homes, than in a hospital - which is the most expensive alternative.
A recent column by Barbara Kay in the National Post talks about today's Zoomers (Boomers with Zip) and notes that "health care is uppermost in our minds. Wellness spas are hot. And Google "discount heart surgery" : you'll get two million hits. Look for Boomer selfishness to end medicare as we know it: if we can't get the care we want here, we'll buy it in India." If we can buy it in India, why don't we start demanding the right to buy it in Ontario? Why don't we have the right to choose our own health care services and providers? It's time for Gen-50plus to stand up and start demanding the kind of health care we want and deserve, and for the right to pay for it ourselves if we want to.
Comments?
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