Heatwave

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It's August. Time to leave for the Midi, Costa Brava, Costa Del Sol or Greece, leaving Grand-mère behind while her relations soak up the sun. So the elderly, those over 65, die by the thousands alone in their rooms up in the attic, under the eaves, in ancient buildings that hold the heat around their blackened stones and during heat waves, become known as heat islands.

At the little resort village of Playa Del Aro on the Costa Brava, one woman says, when asked,
     No, we don't take Grand-mère with us anymore. She no longer swims and would become bored. In Paris, she has her own room at the top of the stairs.
     No, it's not insulated or air-conditioned. We don't need it in Paris in these cool old buildings and our tiny little heat waves.
     The au pair? She goes away, too, as well as our doctor whom, amusingly, we met at the beach just now.
     Food? Yes, Grand-mère goes out every day with her string bag bringing back the baguette and some cheese.
     Yes, many flights of stairs. The doctor says it is good for her to walk to stay fit.

So the elderly die in their beds—15,000 alone in their homes—while at the hospitals, whole wards are closed and at the nursing homes, which are permanently understaffed anyway, the elderly, sick and dehydrated, are lined up in corridors, left in trolleys, black tongues hanging out, thick with thirst, no one to do what had to be done for them, dampening them down, making them drink. There are not enough people left on the staff, doctors and nurses vacationing. In Arles, one woman takes her elderly aunt to the hospital, where the nurse tells her to take the old lady away.
     I don't have time to bother with her.
     She had been fighting fit and now she is dead and I must bury her, the niece says.

As for burying, there is a two week wait for coffins, and no one to dig the graves. So coffins pile high while the grave diggers are awaited. The statistics are shocking but think of the person lying there, once "fighting fit", knowing they are flotsam.

The Inuit put their used up, useless elders on ice floes to get ride of them.
We just fry them to death.