John Humphreys, the ‘Today’ programme host, spoke to the chief exec of faltering care company Southern Cross yesterday. The chief exec, Christopher Fisher, sounded increasingly like a dysfunctional robot as Humphreys turned the screw,  increasingly bothered by Fisher’s text book but echoingly hollow and inadequate replies.

And well he might be bothered. 31,000 elderly and vulnerable people are being frightened by the prospect that they might be having to find another place to live quite soon. They don’t need this worry; to face the potential scramble for new lodgings when they are old, infirm and possibly alone in the world.

The company bosses already cashed their shares in a while back and made a killing. Now it is anyone’s guess whether a rescue plan can be cobbled together. In many ways this is a business saga like any other. The difference here is that Southern Cross provides us with an illustration of the inherent queasiness of a situation where care has been commodified.

Care homes are a relatively new development and only in the 21st Century have they become the standard form of care for the most aged and incapacitated people in our society. Before that it was family, friends, the church maybe.

Now, ‘you pays your money, you gets your care’. But when it becomes a money issue, the care on offer becomes subject to the vagaries of the market. The help you desperately need in order to end your life with a measure of dignity may well be withdrawn because a banker no longer sees your care home as a prudent investment. It’s not pretty, but it’s the way our society seems to have gone with our unsound emphases on money as the key to everything and independence at all costs.

Shakespeare would have understood John Humphreys’ unease well. In his play ‘King Lear’ the abandoned, desolate old King wanders the freezing, rain sodden heath at night. His daughters have taken his property, got what they wanted, and abandoned all affection for him in the process. King Lear is overwhelmed by a sense of the ghastliness of life without genuine human warmth:

‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is/ To have a thankless child.’

I feel for those in Southern Cross care homes who are now aware of their lack of the security that real care should bring. I hope they still have families who can help them. May they be saved from the serpent’s teeth of the bankers, the loan companies and the insurers. That is perhaps an appropriate prayer for a prayer-less age.

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