Judge criticises ‘inhuman’ separation of elderly couples
It seems fashionable in this election campaign to talk about things which make politicians “angry”. This story and the phenomenon it describes makes me very angry. We really do owe the older couples who are victim to our failure to plan housing adequately for the most vulnerable in society better than this!! This story tells us
Separating elderly couples against their wishes when one or both move to care homes must end, Britain’s most senior family judge has said.
Sir James Munby said it was “simply inhumanity” that couples who have spent decades together can be separated in their final years, the Times reports.
In a speech on Tuesday he said such practices could be fatal.
He urged social workers to apply a “common decency test” and do more to keep couples together.
Sir James, the president of the family division of the High Court, said it was “absolutely shocking and a profound indictment of our society” that elderly, vulnerable couples who wanted to live together were sometimes refused shared accommodation and told, “you’re going to go here, you’re going to go there”.