Barbados is an ageing population and like Jamaica we are unprepared to manage the many challenges that will result. We continue to have misplaced priorities as the social security system continues to be systemically impacted by the aggressive ageing of our populations made more acute by the mismanagement of the National Insurance Fund and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) by successive governments.
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Wow. I was SO IMPRESSED with that video. Why the heck can’t Barbados and our Honourable Prime Minister take a page out of their book?
I can tell you from PERSONAL experience that the Government of Barbados has little respect or reverence for their elders.
I do not wish to publicly go into the story here but the NIS is picking, choosing and refusing who they will pay benefits to, especially with regards to those who live overseas.
Cutting off pensions to those who have served their country in the Government for thirty three years. That is correct. It is reprehensible and no amount of calling, sending lawyers or people to the NIS to plead on your behalf does any good or merits any response.
How many Barbadians have received this treatment and now in their elder years have to find themselves back in the workforce?
This is EGREGIOUS and all those responsible are going to get older one of these days.
Who will stand up for them?
DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW JAMAICA COULD BE COMPARED TO THE 2X3 ISLAND.
IN THE MIDDLE OF 2023 I WAS IN A RENTAL CAR IN JAMAICA BEING THERE ON BUSINESS WHEN I HEARD THE FORMER FINANCE MINISTER WHO I BELIEVE HAS WENT ON TO THE IMF OR WORLD BANK THAT HIS PARTY THE RULING JLP HOW MUCH THEY HAD DONE IN 10 YEARS FOR THE JAMAICAN PEOPLE.
HE WENT ON TO SAY THAT 70 PERCENT OF THE LOCAL POPULATION ARE LIVING BELOW THE POVERTY LEVEL.
I COULDN’T BELIEVE WHAT I WAS HEARING AND WHY THE POLITICIANS WEREN’T BEING CHASED INTO THE SEA.
I HAVE SEEN MUCH BEGGING AND TRICKS BY JAMAICANS ON THE ISLAND.
THE 2X3 ISLAND IS NOWHERE CLOSE TO THE BACKWARDNESS I SAW AND EXPERIENCED IN JAMAICA OVER A 3 YEAR PERIOD FLYING IN AND OUT AT LEAST 12 TIMES BETWEEN AUGUST 2020 AND JANUARY 2024 BEFORE I TRAVELED TO TANZANIA AFRICA.
Begging and borrowing?
“Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley will next month lead a Government delegation on an overseas trip that could result in Barbados borrowing millions of dollars on the international capital market for the first time since 2013”
https://nationnews.com/2025/05/10/barbados-seeking-international-financing/
“but you can’t abide by the rules when it suits you and ignore the rules when it suits you too,” she added. (PM Mottley on the topic of political party subventions)
I am forced to ask why not?
Just for wutlessness, I intentionally did not file several required corporate filings. It took them a few years, and then I got a demand. I wrote on the letter with a red marker, ASK the NIS?, and returned to sender.
I heard the PM carrying on at a recent political meeting, about how they fixed the QEH. It needed fixing?
The opening statement I would suggest is the modus operandi of the last two administrations of GoB. They ignore so many rules and laws, as it suits them.
Right on cue, largely because the local debt instruments have not been enthusiastically received, “we” going on a whirlwind international tour seeking private financing. God bless Bim.
Keep on minding your money. Do not buy a Bond or TBill, until the GoB begins reporting. They could begin with the QEH (cause the NIS is now a lost cause) where we haven’t seen an Annual Report since the lion at Gun Hill was a cub (©JohnA). Then we might better understand what was fixed.
@BAJE May 9, 2025 at 6:07 pm “THE 2X3 ISLAND IS NOWHERE CLOSE TO THE BACKWARDNESS I SAW AND EXPERIENCED IN JAMAICA OVER A 3 YEAR PERIOD.”
I can’t believe that BAJE has given Barbados a compliment, even though it is a back handed one. Lol!
@BAJE May 9, 2025 at 6:07 pm “THE FORMER FINANCE MINISTER WHO I BELIEVE HAS WENT ON TO THE IMF OR WORLD BANK.”
CORRECTION: “THE FORMER FINANCE MINISTER WHO I BELIEVE HAS gone ON TO THE IMF OR WORLD BANK.”
@Hants May 10, 2025 at 11:58 am “Begging and borrowing?”
Borrowing isn’t the same as begging.
People borrow – me too.
Governments borrow.
But both people and governments must borrow for sensible reasons. On the individual level, most of us have borrowed to acquire a house, many of us have borrowed to buy a vehicle to get us to our jobs, some of us have borrowed to finance the education of ourselves or our children.
But to borrow to acquire a McMansion is not sensible, to buy a top of the line luxury car every 3 years not necessary, to go tor send the kid to the most expensive university in the world, real-real foolish.
But in principle nothing wrong with borrowing, as long as the individual or the government has an excellent plan for paying back. But in this life sometimes sh!t happens. COVID19, I looking at you.
The last time I borrowed to buy a vehicle was in 1973 when I borrowed $2,500. A whole lotta money back then. Lol!
No doubt Northern some of it is long time bad governance, but tummuch of we Bajans wufless. We claim sick leave when we are not sick. We drink too much alcohol. We smoke tobacco and other evil substances, we eat too much poor quality food, that is too much salt, sugar and fat, we won’t move our bodies except on Kadooment Day and then we act surprised when we are sick, sick long before the age of 70.
I don’t go to town much anymore, but I was in town on May 3rd and I was horrified at the number of grossly obese YOUNG people, and I said “Lord havis mercy, how the QEH gine manage?
And of course there is a huge problem of medical non-compliance. For example in the UK “According to the Medicines Partnership the proportion of patients classified as non-compliant at six and 12 months was 61 per cent and 68 per cent respectively” I don’t know Barbados’ data, but I would not be at all surprised if ours is worse. People don’t follow medical instructions, but will invariably turn up at the QEH when they become sick-sick and expect the same medical professionals who they believe don’t know anything, to work miracles, as though doctors and nurses are Jesus Christ.
So it is not only bad money management, but we the people managing ourselves badly.
And of course the demographics is a large part of the problem. I still don’t know why the birth rate has fallen so dramatically, except that I do know that child raising, especially when working a full time job and looking after elders is bloody hard work. I’ve been there. Done that. Woken up at 4 AM to cook and deliver food for the elders, left the older child to awaken and feed the younger so that when I got back home at 6:30 we could hurry out the door for school and work. This went on for 14 years.
Now I have 3 siblings older than 75. Those siblings have just 5 “children” aged between 53 and 33, and only 2 grandchildren. A demographic time bomb. Especially as 3 of the “children” are female and 2 of the 3 are over 50 so long past child bearing age.
Cuhdear..
We really DON’T need to know all of your personal business…
However you may have inadvertently explained a number of national anomalies in your rantings…
1 – The PM financial thinking is becoming clearer by the loan… but currently, it is as clear as mud. Clearly she STILL thinks that MONEY solves everything….!!
2 – It seems that Bajans’ medical approach, much like your ZR addiction, is to stick with the past, rather than to plan for, and embrace the future. (will you call an ambulance when YOUR emergency comes? … or you going QEH by ZR…?)
3 – Given the physiological methodology by which children (future generations) are conceived, you may well have explained our present predicament to a ’T’….
Have you had a look at the so-called men knocking around of late?
…and even more so, at the females available for the process?
As you suggest, child raising is TOUGH!!
It is NOT a job for shiitehounds, money-lovers, or for the MORALLY compromised.
No wonder so many of our females are childless…
They and their shiite ‘men’ are too busy chasing money
– mostly by begging, borrowing or dealing…
But ‘day can ONLY run until night catches it’…
@Cuhdear @5:46
You touched on a concern that I have. My Bajan family is spread all over the place, but my grandmother with 8 children had more offsprings than her children combined and the grand children are even fewer.
I am not aware of any same sex activity but yet the family is dying off.
@BT #3
I fear you may have identified only a small part of the problem
“we haven’t seen an Annual Report since the lion at Gun Hill was a cub (©JohnA)”
That is a great line. I love it.
@Bush Tea “But ‘day can ONLY run until night catches it’…”
Actually the correct saying is:
Night does run ’till day catch it.
@Bush Tea May 11, 2025 at 8:25 am “Cuhdear…We really DON’T need to know all of your personal business…”
Yuh done know whether ya like it or not. Lol!
🌧💦 ☔ When the rain falls…
BU is full of Oldies but Goodies
like good reggae soul jazz music
We all get older at the same rate
one day at a time
Who is eligible for assisted dying?
People who have an incurable condition, face unbearable suffering and are mentally competent may be eligible for voluntary euthanasia or assisted dying.
— No one knows. We do know how it ends at the end. It ends the same for each of us, I guess. Uh, buy the ticket. Take the ride, right? Who knows?
No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind.
Buy the ticket, take the ride…and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well… maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion:
Tune in, freak out, get beaten.
there is no quote more complete. It doesn’t even need explanation essentially it is “Dont be a c*nt.. go for it and ride whatever you jumped upon!”
When the rain falls
it don’t fall on one man’s house
when it pours
showers of blessings
Children obey your mama and papa
and your days will be long on the land
Be good to one another
Stop killing each other
Life is for living
Love it or leave it
Take my hand
and let me go to Mount Zion
Live up right
in the Lord’s sight
@TheOG May 11, 2025 at 10:14 am ” My Bajan family is spread all over the place, but my grandmother with 8 children had more offspring than her children combined and the grand children are even fewer.”
Exactly.
So it isn’t just my family or yours. It is not “personal business”
The truth is that child rearing is so difficult and takes s long to complete successfully, that once reliable contraceptives become available most people sharply curtail their child bearing and the decades long WORK it takes to raise an 8 pound baby to productive adulthood.
Many many countries [and families] are facing this problem and in truth I don’t know what is the solution, and I’ve heard of no public policy decisions from any country, except immigration, but immigration is simply “sheep stealing”
I am not a Roman Catholic but sometimes I wonder if that domination wasn’t on to something when it worried about the contraceptive pill.
Personal I am glad for the pill, otherwise I like my mother may have given birth to 9 children and spent a lifetime, that is from age 21 to age 63 raising them to adulthood.
Tell me do any of us know any man or any woman nowadays who is willing to spend 42 years raising children?
I have no solution.
However today I enjoyed dressing up and enjoyed my Mother’s Day outing.
@SS
Happy Mother’s Day to you and all the BU family mothers. They have been the backbone of society for many years, including mine who is now in her 90s.
As I have pointed out many times before over a period of years here on Bu, women tend to communicate in feminine ways. Cuhdear Bajan illustrates her points with examples from her life. So do I. Those men who have a problem with it should just let women be women. There is method to our “madness”.
What really is personal business anyway? Somebody always knows it anyway. You “private persons” are only fooling yourselves.
This is Mental Health Awareness Month and just last week I saw an article where discussions on personal struggles with mental health were touted by medical professionals as a way to combat stigma, which they say is the greatest problem preventing persons from seeking early intervention. “Let it be part of normal conversation!” was the plea.
But when on BU I spoke a few sentences about the origin of my issues, some supposedly intelligent man felt moved to ask, “Wait! Is this a therapy session?”
NO! It was letting it be part of normal conversation!
Of course, it ended up with a big ole stigma attack on de mad woman, proving the point.
Yesterday’s Sunday Sun told the tale of a brave Trini woman and her battle with bipolar disorder. She tells her success story in an attempt to encourage others to seek available treatment. Many people, she reveals, are uncomfortable with her openness.
Another article I read last week spoke of the challenging state of mental health of our young people in Barbados. It stated that they are suffering in silence.
The response of some BU men?
“Let the silence continue!”
You must agree that Barbados can be a harsh and cruel place.
It is my opinion that it devours those that it considers as weak. This is seen in all aspect of society including our justice system.
Silence may be seen as affording some protection as speaking up and out may bring unwanted attention. Let’s hope that all get the courage to make their voices heard.
Understand that I don’t take the ole misogynist Bush Tea seriously.
How can it be “personal business” that my parents had 9 children,15 grandchildren, 12 great grandchildren, and so far only 1 great-great grandchild. Have I provided anybody’s names, address, telephone number, email address, national insurance number, or tax number? However the 12 great grands are aged between 3 and 47, with 11 of them being younger than 30 so there is yet hope there is yet hope.
What I have said, and what in fact I noticed myself in 1990 when I censused more that 500 households in rural Barbados is that our population is rapidly declining, so it is not a “personal business” issue. It is rather a serious public policy issue, not only in Barbados but in many other countries, and I don’t know of any country which has come up with serious policy decisions.
Facing reality and dealing with it, in my crazy opinion, makes one stronger, not weaker. Silence does not afford any protection, it retards one’s development and keeps one in agony until some can bear it no longer and take their own lives.
I don’t know how giving in to the ignorant or the stupid is a solution to any problem. As I always say, “The difference between my problem and yours is that there is treatment available. You, on the other hand, have no treatment for your stupidity.”
I’m not one of the weak ones. I made it through the rain.
@Donna May 12, 2025 at 6:55 am “As I have pointed out many times before over a period of years here on Bu, women tend to communicate in feminine ways. Cuhdear Bajan illustrates her points with examples from her life. So do I. Those men who have a problem with it should just let women be women.”
Some of our men, including some of our very “senior” men don’t even publicly acknowledge that they are fathers. How does a person secretly raise a child, is never ever seen with the child, and does this do emotional harm to the child?
@NorthernObserver May 11, 2025 at 10:42 pm “SS Happy Mother’s Day to you and all the BU family mothers.
Thank you. There is never a bad time to enjoy good food with good company.
And my your beloved mother continue to “bat” like Sir Garry.
“New laws to deal with ageing society—Humphrey
Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs, Kirk Humphrey, says Barbados has been caught “unprepared” by the country’s approach to “super-aged” status and is now racing to deal with the new status quo.
Speaking at a press briefing held at the Usain Bolt Sports Complex on Monday ahead of the 2025 National Senior Games, Humphrey said, the government is now seeking to implement key legislative reforms to better support its growing elderly population.
He cited data from the most recent census and noted that approximately 20 per cent of Barbados’ population is already over the age of 65—just one percentage point shy of the 21 per cent threshold used internationally to define a “super-aged” society.
“It seems to me that this ageing phenomenon has caught Barbados unprepared. I say so because when I think about the number of persons who are getting older, in terms of the institutions that we have, in terms of the legislation that we have, we were not fully prepared. The statistics tell us that Barbados is inching towards becoming a super-aged society; a super-aged society obviously comes with its own concerns. We have more people who are going to be in need of care as they get older [and] considering Barbados is producing less children, you have a smaller workforce,” he said.
The demographic trend is driven in part by longer life expectancy coupled with declining birth rates, which raises pressing challenges for both healthcare and economic sustainability, the minister said.
“There’s a thing called a dependency ratio; dependency ratio essentially is the amount of persons who are not working who have to be supported in relation to the amount of persons who are working. So people under 16, people over 65 tend to want support and that group is supported by the working population which is dwindling. Essentially, you have a larger ageing population and a smaller workforce to be able to support that population, and if that population is unhealthy, then the cost of supporting that population becomes even more impactful.
“Therefore, we have to find a way to be able to keep healthy.
Healthy and active ageing has been part of the mandate of the ministry,” Humphrey stressed.
He also announced major legislative efforts aimed at improving elder care and planning for age-related cognitive decline.
The minister revealed that the long-awaited Elderly Bill is now in draft form and expected to be laid before Parliament by June. In addition, legislation surrounding lasting powers of attorney is also being finalised. These legal tools would allow individuals to designate someone to manage their affairs even after losing cognitive capacity—an option not currently available under existing Barbadian law.
“In Barbados as it stands, if you reach a certain age and then you are affected by anything that challenges you cognitively— you develop dementia—then your power of attorney ceases, and it [the Bill] allows us to review that,” he said. “It gives greater options to persons who can then find new ways to care for the elderly. It also gives the elderly, I should say seniors, options as well in relation to how they choose to be cared for as we go forward. That legislation should also be in the Parliament by June, July as well.” (SB)”
I don’t know how any individual or country can be surprised about Barbados’ aging population. In 1990 I censused 2 districts, about 500 families [most work I have ever done, for the least money, lol!, but a worthwhile sociological exercise] and it was clear to me then that Barbados was rapidly aging, and that not enough children were being born, even while the common view was “dem young girls getting tummuch children.” Young girls were not getting tummuch children. Most children were being born to young women, that is women between aged between 19 and 34, exactly the same as had been done by our mothers and grandmothers, except that most young women were stopping at one or two children. Sometimes I think that we are so busy denigrating young people, and specifically young women for their sexuality, that we forget that ONLY young women can give birth, and that even in this technological 21st century children cannot be born unless young women engage in sexual activity.
In addition our policy makers did not raise the amount of maternity leave from about 1967 to this year when it went up by 2 or 3 weeks, and some leave was rightly added for fathers. Why would people want to do a mothering job for the same “wages/maternity leave” in 2024 as in 1967?
If I had my way I would have reduced the politicians wages and benefits, and those of senior civil servants, and consultants to 1967 levels until they got the message that “manufacturing” new people is as socially and economically as useful a “job” as any other.
Many of our current political and administrative officials were children in 1990, but still they need to be guided by the data which those of us who tramped through every village in Barbados for low pay collected in 1990 and subsequent censuses.
Sickening.
An old man get beaten and robbed and no comment from the BU maguffees.
@Hants,
We have made our comments elsewhere.
It is a sad state of affairs.
What did he say?
I like the man Kirk, but I stopped listening to anything he says.
He talks a good game, but doesn’t really deliver.
☺@cuhdear
Because you are getting older, don’t you dare think that the rest of us are in the same boat☺
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwG6g5boyF4
Rod Stewart – Forever young
OG good for you and for Rod Stewart.
@Hants
Anyone who hurts an old man or an old woman, especially an old man with vision problems is a wicked person, and deserves whatever punishment the law inflicts.
And since he is likely young, it is not too late for his family to teach him right from wrong, and it is ALWAYS wrong to attack vulnerable people, old people, children, the disabled, special needs adults or children.
@ The OG,
“My ministry stands ready to open our social services to this gentleman and we will work assiduously to ensure that he receives the assistance he needs to help him overcome this troubling ordeal,” he said.
Elderly mother ‘locked away’
SOME RESIDENTS OF BECKLES ROAD, New Orleans, in The City are pleading with the National Assistance Board (NAB) to send help for an elderly woman in their district.
The residents said 74-year-old Sylvesta Hinds spends every day locked away in her house and they are concerned about her health and safety.
When a NATION team visited Hinds, who lives with her son, she spoke through the louvres of her door and confirmed that she could not get out of the house. She also pointed out that her back was “hunched over” which affected her mobility.
While she admitted that her son gives her meals she pointed out that she was dependent on whatever time he brings food for her.
“He does bring something for me and then go ahead. He does lock the house and I can’t get out because my back bend. He does come home late around six or seven o’clock at night,” she said,” adding that while they had electricity the water supply was disconnected.
The neighbours pointed out that Hinds’ son was a member of the Special Olympics team.
“He is kind of slow but he knows right from wrong,” Pat Brathwaite said.
They pointed out that he used to leave home with his mother at six on mornings and take her into The City where she would sit on a bench until he was ready to bring her home in the evening.
“We knew something was wrong when she stopped leaving home last year and when we checked her back had gotten worse. He leaves here early on mornings and brings back something for her in the afternoon then leaves again and comes back late in the evening,” Brathwaite said.
Stench from house
The residents said they started to get concerned when there was a stench coming from the house.
“We couldn’t open our windows; we couldn’t eat our food. It was really bad and when we checked we realised the house was full of garbage from top to bottom and it was filthy,” they said.
“We called in the NAB back in January and four women came. When they looked into the house and saw all the garbage and the smell it almost knocked them out and they said they could not help her with the house in that state.”
Pat said it was then that she approached Hinds’ son.
“I told him that the NAB people went here and the condition of the house the people nearly faint and they ain’t coming back. I tell him ‘you got to clean up in there and if you don’t the police coming’. The next morning he start to clean up and he tell me he getting help from his coach. In there was a state. Them bring out hundreds of bags of garbage.”
However, the residents said a stench still remained and they were concerned about the elderly woman’s hygiene situation since the house had no water.
Pat said what pushed them over the brink was two weeks ago when the son celebrated his birthday.
“He came home and tell his mother he going on a staycation and he ain’t leave nothing in there for the woman to eat or drink. We had to bring her food and snacks and water and hand her them through the louvres because he left for four days.”
The women said they had been calling back the NAB since the house was cleaned.
“They told us that they have to speak to a special supervisor about the matter. Miss Hinds needs help badly,” they cried.
Hinds, however, said that her son did not want the NAB to come to the house but she too admitted that she was in need of care. She said she did not get a pension and survived on a small stipend from the Welfare Department.
When contacted, NAB director Colleen Walcott said she was not aware of the matter but would speak to officers to find out what services Hinds was trying to access.
This column was unable to reach Hinds’ son.
Source: Nation
Very sad.
Good thing that the neighbors are kind and doing what they can to assist the son in caring for his mother. But the situation may have become too complex to be handled by kind neighbors and a “slow” son.
NAB and other government and non-government agencies please jump in to help this lady and her son.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.