Crewe's independent pensioner group, the Northern Pensioners
Association (NPA), has welcomed the publication of the Equality Bill, but has called on the government to speed up the process of banning age discrimination in the field of health and social care.
Barbara Smith, Chairlady said: “Having equality on paper is a major step towards tackling age discrimination in society, but putting that into practice is going to be much harder to achieve. The devil will be in the detail of the bill and with a possible delay of up to five years before this legislation takes effect, millions of older patients will remain second-class citizens.”
“Until such time as society changes its attitude towards growing older, we have a right to ask who is going to stop health care decisions being based on age rather than clinical need? We demand that older people are treated as valued human beings rather than resources that have passed their sell-by date?”
“When the cabinet has a proportion of older people serving in it and
pensioners are given proper economic power through a decent state
pension, then we’ll know that ageism has really been consigned to the dustbin of history.”
07 May 2009
Equality Bill Welcomed
