As well as changing clinical needs older people will have increasing expectations about retaining good oral health and appearance in old age, and will have many resources to take advances in cosmetic procedures. This in turn will mean that there will be a greater awareness of these procedures to the larger consumer public.
Consequence 2: Change in spending for health care costs.
Country: Australia
As can be expected, an ageing population means a better healthcare service is need to provide for the growing numbers of elderly people. The World Health Organization warns that the health impact could be enormous. It predicts a big rise in cancers, coronary heart disease, diabetes, dementia and other illnesses related to ageing. In forty years time Australians aged 65+ are expected to account for around 22% of Australia’s population. As a result, total health care costs (public and private) are expected to rise from the present 8.5% of the Gross Domestic Product to 15% of the GDP. Meeting the budgetary requirements of an ageing population will now require other things being in balance. Therefore, the Australian government has three options
- Raise taxes for the young
- It can use funds, which were to be used for other pressing long-term concerns e.g. environmental degradation.
- It can try to get the money to fund the bulge in the population by getting money out of them whilst they are still at working age.
Consequence 3: manpower needed for services
Country: Singapore
The provision of health care requires manpower to provide better health care services, and should be taken into consideration. The Singapore government suggests that multi task staff be trained in areas such as nursing, rehabilitation and care management to meet the different needs of the elderly. Since time and commitment are often, problems for such staff, part time courses could be developed to encourage staff to upgrade. Training of health personnel should be under the Skills Development fund and Skills Redeveloped programme. The recommendation also is that these training centred are clustered together so that experts can assist in training. For informal carers support services should be made more available. This will mean that fewer people have to be sent to nursing homes. Overall, the system should encourage more training so more people will work for the sector and provide a better service.
Conclusion
Overall, an ageing population means that better and more extensive services will need to be created to provide for the elderly. In order that the bulge in population growth does not take, a toll on the young people in their old age forward planning should be made and the government should try to extract money from that bracket of the population whilst they are still working. This makes sure that resources are not a strain in the future and the young population are not heavily taxed.
