Your Government is Ageist and Doctors are Ageist Too (But a friend has found a way to beat them)
Dr Vernon Coleman
Older people who need medical help are made to wait until younger patients have been treated. In Accident and Emergency Departments, older patients are made to wait days for treatment. Many previously fit and healthy pensioners die before they receive the urgent help they need. Some die before being diagnosed or treated. Many of those who die, ignored and abandoned, would have lived for years if they’d been treated. They die simply because they are considered too old.
And those older patients who try to treat themselves will often find it difficult. Pharmacies (especially those online) will often refuse to sell medicines to anyone over the age of 60 or 65. There is no sensible reason for this, which is just another example of ageism.
And it means that the elderly cannot get treatment and cannot treat themselves.
One person has found a way round all this rampant ageism.
A friend of mine who is 79 always tells doctors that he is 59. He says he finds this particularly easy to do when buying medicines online. Since some hospitals give priority to patients who have children and grandchildren he always says he has four of each.
I can’t recommend such modestly dishonest behaviour, of course.
But it apparently works well for my friend.
It’s quite a dilemma, isn’t it? Would you tell a lie that hurt no one if it saved your life?
Copyright Vernon Coleman January 2026
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