Life expectancy up, but poor health will affect many families

British men and women are living longer but spending many of their extra years in ill health.

A report from Public Health England said there had been a notable reduction in heart attacks and strokes as a result of a decrease in smokers from 20 percent of the population in 2005 to just over 15 percent. However, diabetes, obesity, dementia and mental health issues are all on the rise.

Average life expectancy has reached 79 years for men and 83 years for women, but most people can expect only 63 years of good health, meaning they will live poorly for up to a fifth of their lifetime.

Obesity is a leading risk factor. In 2016, one in four adults was obese and the proportion is increasing. Diabetes is a common result of obesity and experts predict that the number of adult diabetics will reach five million by 2035.

LIFESTYLE

Age-related dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, has risen to become the leading cause of death among women and looks set to overtake heart disease as the biggest killer of men.

Hearing loss, sight loss and muscle and joint problems have also gone up among the elderly while in young people, mental health issues, such as depression, now account for a third of ill health.

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, who chairs the Royal College of GPs (General Practitioners), highlighted “a clear connection between the quality of our patients’ lifestyles and their overall health”.

Welcoming the drop in smoking, she cautioned that “the chances of people developing illnesses like diabetes is still worryingly high and frequently is the result of poor diet and lack of exercise.”

Professor John Newton of Public Health England said, “The challenge now is for the National Health Service to respond to this changing landscape and focus on preventing as well as treating conditions.”

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CHILD MIGRANTS

In 1945, Britain was a poor country, economically devastated by five years of war. As part of the recovery effort, the government decided that some children would have better lives abroad.

Accordingly, between 1945 and 1970, approximately 4,000 girls and boys, some as young as three years old, were separated from their families and sent across the British empire, from Australia to Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia.

However, many of the children, in their new homes, were used as forced labour and subjected to sexual and emotional abuse. Some were wrongly told they were orphans, depriving them of their chance of meeting their birth parents.

In 2010, the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, apologised on behalf of the government, and last March, an official inquiry said the surviving 2,000 child migrants should receive financial compensation.

However, the government has failed to act and now more than 100 of the evacuees are suing the government over the abuse they faced.

One of them is John Glynn, who was sent to a Christian institution in Western Australia when he was eight years old.

“I think about that a lot now,” he said. “They took my childhood from me. They took my country from me, my heritage.”

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HUMANITY

Ambulances on urgent calls sometimes have to park wherever they can, resulting in abusive reactions from some members of the public.

Last year, medics from the West Midlands found a note on their windscreen telling them, “You may be saving lives but don’t park your van in a stupid place and block my drive.”

Happily, not everyone is like that. A crew who had been attending a patient in Faversham returned to find a note on their windscreen which said, “You’re blocking our drive. No worries. Buy a coffee when you can.” Under the windscreen wiper was a £10 (Sh1,300) note.

Said ambulance man Gary Turley, “It was really uplifting and restored our faith in humanity.”

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Some British people who go on holiday abroad seem to expect that everything should be exactly as it is back home.

For instance, the tourist company Thomas Cook received this complaint: “I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts.”

Other mind-boggling observations: “It’s lazy of the local shopkeepers to close in the afternoons. I often need to buy things during ‘siesta’ time. This should be banned.”

“We bought Ray Ban glasses for five Euros from a street trader only to find they were fake.”

A visitor to Australia complained that the soup was too thick and strong. It turns out he was eating the gravy.

And finally, two holidaymakers with evident spatial and geographical problems:

“I compared the size of our one-bedroom apartment to our friends’ three-bedroom apartment and ours was significantly smaller.”

“It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It only took the Americans three hours to get home.”

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