Let us, the Isle of Cumbrae Elderly Forum, tell you a story!

Sadly this is not a Fairy Story but it has all of the usual ingredients of a good story - heroes, villains, mystery and, of course, victims.

Whilst reading this story, please try to hold in your mind two facts;

1 - The U.K. cannot deport the killer of a Headmaster as this would deny him access to a "family life" and thus contravene his Human Rights as defined by article 8 of the Human Right's Act.

2 - North Ayrshire Council tell us that they have £54 million of our money "invested" in different institutions - not being used to improve of lives of those people who gave them the money in the first place - but just laying dormant somewhere.

Back to our story!

There is a beautiful Island called Cumbrae that had several privately run Care/Residential Homes for its Elderly. However, one by one the people who owned them shut these Homes. This left Cumbrae with nowhere on the Island to keep their Elderly safe and close to their relatives and friends, or "having access to a family life".

The 9 residents in the last Home were sent off of the Island and scattered around in the west of Scotland - most have since died. Except for one lady who was lucky enough to have relatives with the means to provide her with 24-hour care in her own home, and so she was brought back to Cumbrae where she stayed for another 2 years.

One lady born on the Island but sent away is still convinced that she will be coming home to end her days - how very sad!

The Forum was formed to attempt to try to stop this happening. So after a struggle the local Council ran two Consultation Days to ask Cumbrae's Elderly what it could do to improve the lives of the Elderly living on the Island.

They were given a lot of information on the gaps in the provision of Care for the Island's Elderly, with the most important gap being the complete lack of anywhere on the Island for the Elderly to go once they could no longer stay in their homes. From all of this, the Council produced a Consultation Document.

To be scrupulously fair, the Council did a lot of things to plug the smaller gaps that existed and things did improve.

However, the largest and most pressing need of a Residential Care Facility Home was not even considered by the Council - money was as ever a problem!

On this Cumbrae Island several Elderly people were becoming unable to care for themselves in their Homes and so two "Integrated Care Beds" were provided at the Local Hospital, but the Elderly could only stay in one of these for 8 weeks. No matter how many empty beds there were in the Hospital - 8 weeks was the Rule and that was that.

We pause to wonder just which faceless cog in the bureaucracy machinery of the Health Board made these unforgiving and inflexible Rules?

But dear Reader, you and I know that Rules are not made with Compassion or Humanity in mind, but Rules are Rules and after 8 weeks if Cumbrae's Elderly could not return to their homes - off of the Island they went!

You may wonder at this point of the story "why a killer cannot have his Human Rights breached but it is o.k. to breach those of the frail and Elderly". This is obviously the mystery part of this story.

In this story appear several people, some with Spouses some without, and again it seems it is acceptable to the local authorities for married couples to be separated, sending one somewhere off of the island to live whilst their life's partner still lives alone on the Island.

Remember, these are people who have committed no crime other than that of becoming frail and Elderly but as none of them had murdered anyone, Faceless Bureaucracy was not interested in their plight.

So, not only are they denied any sort of family life, they are also separated from their life's partner. If they are Elderly and frail they are not accorded the same rights that are given to a criminal.

Just one of these couples (both in their 80's) struggled for years to stay together, her caring for him because she loved him and wanted him at home with her.

When he became too frail to stay at home, he was sent up to the local Hospital where he had his allotted 8 weeks. The question then was "what next"?

Again she took him home but caring for him proved too much for her and she was admitted to the local hospital herself.

What then to do with her husband of 62 years. The kind, generous and obvious thing to do was to send him up to the local hospital so they could be together.

However, this is where the Rules came in! Rules, we all know, are not made with compassion, humanity or common sense in mind. Nor are they applied with any of these attributes.

No, the Rules were applied and off the Island he went.

After a week or two it was discovered that he needed "palliative care" so he was returned to the Island's hospital where he died two days later.

Like us, you may wonder just why it was necessary at this time of their lives for them to be separated - in different towns with a strip of water between them when just a little humanity could have made a world of difference.

This isn't the end of this story, as we've lots of instances of what is happening on this Island to the Elderly. Sadly though, this isn't fiction and it's happening here to people we know in Britain in the 21st Century.

The real mystery is "WHY"? The Hospital is there and the Council obviously has the money - (The leader of the Council is reported as saying that the loss of £15 million would not be the end of the world considering NAC's £400 million Budget!).

From this we would surmise that spending just a small part of such a sum on a much-needed facility here in Millport would not be the "end of the World" either for the Council. However, it would be a whole bright New World for the Elderly sent off of the Island to end their days in loneliness!

So, we leave it to you to decide who are the villains, heroes and victims of this particular story.

But dear Reader, with this particular story, you can be sure it's NOT.

"The End".