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Do charities for older people help older people, or do they target older people for donations, and for other political reasons?

Since my mother was diagnosed with dementia, my parents have had a constant stream of charities visit them, and, I have to say, they’ve done the grand total of sweet FA to help them, while creating a hell of a lot of work for me as I run around picking up the pieces afterward.

In one incident that blows my mind entirely, a charity visited my parents’ home recently and somehow ending up presenting them with “end of life treatment option” forms to sign—which they did sign, then bitterly regretted it.

My father, who is 87, always cites the niceness of these callers as evidence of why they did as they suggested. It makes my blood boil.

Vultures, the lot of them, is how I feel. The do-gooders go round, sit and have tea with my frail parents, then tell them there’s nothing they can do to help them with the care needs or medical issues they asked about, but here’s something they might be interested in…

One problem is, charities who purport to help seniors are also most likely to get donations from seniors. Charities who help dementia sufferers might get a hefty donation or legacy from a dementia sufferer, if the forms can be signed while the person still has capacity. So there is that worry. But also, there is the worry of what these charities are pushing on behalf of the state.

The first time I came into contact with this issue was after my father had a heart attack and I was staying with my parents when a dementia charity started calling them on their home phone.

They would not take no for an answer when I told them my father was in hospital and my mother was distressed and unable to come to the phone.

Not a word of sympathy, but a lot of babble about compliance needing to be done, and a process my father had started that they needed to finish.

Oh yes, I said, and what process was that? If it was the thing he had sought help for, forget it, I’ve sorted it. He had asked them, so far as I could make out from the paperwork I found on the kitchen table, to help him fill out some welfare forms. They could not or would not. So I told him when I went to visit him in hospital that I would help him do it.

I then told this charity when they called the house phone that the matter he sought their help with was resolved, thanks very much. But they kept calling.

At one point a very pushy woman insisted she must speak to my mother because “We need to do data capture.” “Now, you listen here,” I said. “My mother’s got no data to capture. She’s got dementia. I would have thought a dementia charity would understand that.”

I sent a written demand to desist by text. Then came a text reply, long and complicated, and so it went on. While dealing with my father in hospital and caring for my mother, I was spending hours a day arguing with this charity that would not go away.

When I told them I was in despair this would ever end, a stupid girl texted me to say that as I had mentioned despair, she had to raise a safeguarding alert on me and advise me to visit my doctor if I was feeling suicidal. I told her I only needed safeguarding from them, and I only felt suicidal because of her.

On and on this madness went, until I told them if they didn’t stop contacting us I would call the authorities and report them for stalking and harassment, at which point they did stop.

The impression left in my mind was not that there was something they wanted to do for us, but something they wanted us to do for them.

That was in April. A few weeks ago, my parents found themselves in a very bad situation following a visit from another charity, this one claiming to support carers, which my father had contacted because he has cared for my mother since her dementia diagnosis.

For some reason I cannot get to the bottom of, they arrived at my parents’ house with “end of life” forms, one for my father and one for my mother.

This form was called “Respect,” which is a darkly ironic title given what was in it. It was a very heavily loaded questionnaire, which clearly encouraged an elderly person to elect not to be resuscitated by stressing the word “comfort” at the end of a sliding scale whereby comfort came with not being resuscitated.

The form was very complex to fill out, requiring a tick on the sliding scale. It was confusing, misleading, disgraceful.

My father has a heart condition and my mother has mild dementia with short-term memory loss only. My mother in particular might live a long while yet. I hope they both do.

My mother, 83, is Roman Catholic and would have nothing to do with electing to be helped to die.

My father, while agnostic, is so in denial about his age that he has not signed power of attorney forms to give me the ability to make decisions for them if they lose capacity. He says there’s plenty of time for that. He worries constantly about his income running out on the basis that he needs a good twenty years’ more money. He won’t remotely concede he is mortal. He still talks about starting another business. Good on him, in a way. It keeps him going.

At times like this, however, I wish I did have power of attorney, because I would kick those charities from one end of the street to another.

It is obvious when you speak to my father that he struggles to grasp things quickly, especially forms, and is easily confused, so you would think any decent organization would ask him to get his daughter to attend a meeting at which they were presenting him with “end of life” choices, for whatever reason, and even if he requested such a process—which I’m sure he did not.

Thankfully, my father is able to sit down after events and work out what has gone on.

He is now very upset about these “Respect” forms and has emailed me to say he has made a mistake filling them out. How do we cancel them? How indeed.

All he knows is that he filled them out, and the charity advised him to take the filled-out forms to his GP, which he did.

I have seen only an example of the empty form, and it includes a frightening section where the GP fills out their medical conditions and then signs by the words “Resuscitate” or “Do Not Resuscitate.”

In other words, my father and mother ticked somewhere on the sliding scale, and then the GP in private is going to decide what they get: life or death. Un-be-fucking-lievable.

But why did the charity give them this form? Perhaps, I thought, these charities want money, which they pursue in a separate phone call or letter, and perhaps the form helps them hurry the seniors off a bit quicker so they can get their money.

Perhaps it’s not that, and they are simply pushing a state policy of getting seniors to hurry up and die, which the government has devised.

I rang and rang and emailed and emailed this charity, and eventually a lady got back to me to say, “We have to give these forms out.” “Why?” I asked. “Because the NHS tells us to,” she said.

“Can I suggest you give some thought about pushing death forms for the NHS?” I said. She said she would take my comments to her manager.

My poor father. He is way too trusting of the system and of human nature generally. He often contacts these charities, or else the doctor or social services puts him in touch with them, presumably to plug the gap in the state provision.

I know because he mentioned it to me that he contacted the carers’ charity for help because he thought they were about caring. Easy mistake to make.

Would my father have contacted an organization called The Killers Alliance? Would he have contacted a charity called Assisted Dying To You?

Would my mother, a devout Catholic, sign a form called No Respect For Life?

It makes me want to scrutinize any charity that has ever visited my parents and find out what forms they might have gotten out of their bag of tricks while they were there.

The mind boggles. I will have to go through my father’s paperwork and emails with him.

And I have to get over my slight hurt that he signs these forms without ringing me.

It’s like the time my mother almost signed her cat and her house away. If she just filled this form out, this godawful cat charity told her, then when she died her cat would be taken care of.

“Mum, for fuck’s sake!” I screamed. “The poor cat! Never mind about you signing your house away, they’d take Pebbles and give her the blue juice!”

“Oh no,” she said, “they look after them for the rest of their lives.” “Do they fuck!” I screamed, hysterical because I’ve investigated many an animal charity that euthanizes its intake on a weekly basis, and when it comes to legacy animals this is legally fine because they have looked after them for the rest of their life. The rest of their life was a week in a shelter, before they get put down.

“Oh dear,” she said, “Oh yes, I see. I better cancel that.” And then a few months later she let slip the donkey sanctuary had been on the phone. For just x pounds a month, or a gift in your will, she could have a lovely calendar. There it was, on her wall.

It’s exhausting. But signing their money away to the donkeys is one thing. What I’m not accepting is them signing their life away.