Heading for old man’s land

We have about 35 years before we become an aged nation. How are we planning for that eventuality?

IT’S my birthday today! I am just a year short of the age in that cheerful Beatles song about growing old, When I’m 64.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote that number for their band’s iconic 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and some of the lyrics speak to me, like the first line about losing hair.

Thankfully, I am not balding – most women don’t lose their hair – but my crowning glory is no longer thick and black. It has become rather fine and is turning salt and pepper, which I hide with monthly colouring. What has disappeared is the hair on my arms and legs. As a teenager and young adult, I was the rare hirsute Chinese girl.

Another relatable line from the song is “Doing the garden, digging the weeds ...,” which is something I do quite often. As I shared in my column, Still a life worth living, on June 30, 2021 (online at bit.ly/star_worth), I had to take care of my garden during the first Covid-19 lockdown when love grass (Chrysopogon aciculatus) started taking over my lawn.

Of late, with the help of my maid, I have ventured into planting some veggies too. I have pots of sweet basil, with which I make pesto sauce, and chives and ginger as well as troughs of spinach, kangkung and kau kee (wolfberry).

I am grateful to be 63. This is especially so after two-and-a-half years of this pandemic that made me acutely aware of my age working against me. This infectious disease drew a line that placed people aged 60 and above on the side of those most at risk from catching and dying from the virus. So I got vaccinated, stayed home, wore my masks religiously, sanitised my hands diligently and took supplements to improve my immune system.

But apart from beating the virus thus far, 63 is a good age to be in the 21st century. After all, the life expectancy for someone born in 1959 was predicted to be 59.07 years, according to macrotends.net. The current life expectancy for Malaysia in 2022 is 76.51 years.

In two years, I will join the old people category that will define whether a nation is an ageing one.

According to the World Bank, Malaysia became an ageing society in 2020 when 7% of its population reached 65 years and over. At the present trajectory, citizens aged 65 and older will double to 14% by 2044, which will “qualify” us as an “aged nation”.

That is faster than global standards. As Datuk Dr Norma Mansor, director of the Social Wellbeing Research Centre, Universiti Malaya, pointed out, Malaysia will transform from an ageing nation to an aged nation in just under 25 years, compared with France, which took 115 years; Sweden, 85 years; and Britain, 45 years, to achieve a similar status.

By 2056, we will be a super-aged nation when 20% of the population is aged 65 and over.

If I am still alive then, I will be 97. That’s the same current age as our super-duper hardy senior citizen Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who was born in 1925. Will I last that long? Perhaps. Longevity is in my genes: my paternal grandparents lived past 80, so too my dad, who passed away at 89, and my mum turned 88 in January.

It’s thanks to advances in medicines, and improved living standards, sanitation, nutrition and healthcare that Malaysians are living longer – but not necessarily better.

My parents developed the now familiar ailments of high blood pressure, coronary artery disease and Type II diabetes. My dad became bedridden and mum is in a wheelchair. My mother-in-law was also bedridden and fed through a tube for more than 10 years before her passing.

These were once strong, vibrant people who became feeble and decrepit in their twilight years. Seeing what happened to them frightens me. I want my old age to be illness- and pain-free, and I don’t want to be a burden to my children. So I do what I can to stay fit and healthy.

Still, despite my best efforts, my body is giving out ageing signals. My right knee aches when I climb the stairs, I have fat lumps and liver spots. My back hurts if I stand or sit too long.

That’s why University of Southern Denmark scientist Fernando Colchero says, “No matter how many vitamins we take, how healthy our environment is or how much we exercise, we will eventually age and die.”

Depressing as that sounds, what we can do is aim to match a long lifespan with an equally good health-span. That way, we reach 80 or 90 but remain hale and hearty a la Dr M right to the end. And when the time comes, we go quickly and painlessly.

It is also something governments should aim for. That means seriously preparing the country for old age.

Singapore is doing so, as I learned from my cousin, Prof John Wong, who is National University of Singapore’s senior vice-president and National University Health System’s (NUHS) senior adviser, during my visit down south in March.

Over dinner, John shared the government’s plan to address the challenges of the country’s ageing population with an ambitious pilot project called Health District @ Queenstown.

Already, about 14% of the population are aged 65 and above, and John says Singapore will be a super-aged society by 2026, when more than 20% of the population are 65 years and older. By 2030, that will increase to 25%.

Singapore launched its blueprint called the Action Plan for Successful Ageing in 2015 and last October the Cabinet approved the Queenstown project.

John is involved because it is a collaborative effort by the Housing and Development Board, the NUHS and the National University of Singapore. Queenstown was picked because it has one of the oldest populations on the island, with almost one out of every four residents aged 65 and above, which closely mirrors Singapore’s projected national demographics by the year 2030.

The project’s four themes are increasing healthy longevity, enabling purposeful longevity, promoting intergenerational cohesion, and helping people remain in the community where they have spent a significant part of their lives.

To achieve the themes, the plan is to create “an inclusive community that leads healthy, active and productive lives across their life course in a quality living environment, which sustainably addresses the determinants of health (social, economic, behavioural and structural) and enables ageing-in-place,” says John in an interview with hdb.gov.sg.

If it can be done sustainably in Queenstown, similar programmes can be adopted across the entire island. John adds that if they can create a nation where people live long and live well, with sustainable, scalable programmes that residents, organisations and policymakers find meaningful, “it will be one of the best ways that we can ensure that Singapore will continue to thrive as a super-aged society”.

Singapore is in a hurry because their ageing problem is truly pressing. If the projections are correct, Malaysia has many more years before we become a super-aged nation. But time waits for no one, and just as my youth disappeared before I knew it, so too will the 34 years we have till 2056.

Can we hope for a similar ageing blueprint for the nation? Perhaps the answer lies in voting younger, promising, sensible leaders into government because it is their future that is at stake.

And if I live to 97, I would be a beneficiary too.

The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.