If you spend any time on social media these days, you have probably stumbled upon them: the short clips of older folks that make you stop scrolling and smile. The grandfather dispensing life advice with a twinkle in his eye. The 80-something who still dances better than her grandchildren. The retiree who, after a lifetime of lessons, sums it all up in one sentence wiser than anything you will find in a self-help book.

We share those videos, tag our friends, and feel something warm. And for good reasons. There is a particular kind of joy in watching someone who has lived a full life still find delight in it. It reminds us, if only for a moment, that growing old is not something to dread but a gift many people never receive.

On Father’s Day, that thought feels especially close. Today, we celebrate the fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and elder figures who shaped us, many of them now in the season of life we call old age. It is a fitting moment to ask ourselves a simple question: when our turn comes, and it will come for all of us, how do we want to be treated?

We are all growing older

Jamaica is an ageing nation. There are now roughly 350,000 of us aged 60 and above, and that number keeps climbing. Around the world, the population of older people is expected to reach two billion by 2050. This is not a crisis to fear; in many ways, it is a triumph. People are living longer. But it does mean the society we build must work for those who have already given so much to it.

We do not talk about this enough, but ageing can be lonely. The children grow up and move away. Old friends pass on. The phone rings a little less each year. For too many of our seniors, what hurts most is not the aches or the slower step. It is the quiet long days spent alone, feeling forgotten by the very people and the very society they spent their lives serving.
That is something we can change. Good medical care matters tremendously but ageing with dignity asks for more than that. It asks for connection and purpose, and for the simple assurance that you still count for something. It asks, too, for a society willing to grow kinder rather than colder as its people grow older.

What we are building

I will not pretend that every senior in this country is treated with the love they deserve. We have all heard the painful stories, they trouble me and they should trouble us. But I would rather use this space to talk about what we are building than to dwell only on what has gone wrong, because the answer to neglect is a community that shows up.

That is the spirit behind the work underway at the Ministry of Health and Wellness. We are advancing a community-based model of geriatric care that brings services closer to the people who need them, instead of waiting for them to arrive at a hospital. We will open pilot geriatric clinics in St Ann and St Catherine, offering comprehensive assessments and specialised care for older adults. And we are expanding home-based care, with community health aides making structured home visits under the supervision of public health nurses, so that help reaches our seniors right where they live.

But the government cannot do this alone, nor should it try to. I am inviting the private sector and our communities to imagine what ageing well could look like in Jamaica. Daycare centres for older people, where a working son or daughter can leave a parent in good company rather than alone at home. Retreats and social activities designed with our seniors in mind. Spaces where they can gather, share their stories, and pass on the very wisdom we so love to watch on social media and to remind them that they are still very much part of the life of this nation.

A quiet promise

Our success will not be measured by how many clinics we build or programmes we announce. It will be measured by whether our mothers and fathers, our grandparents and neighbours, can grow old with dignity, independence, and joy.

So this Father’s Day, as we honour the older men in our lives and all the seniors who have carried us this far, let us make them a quiet promise: that we will not let them grow old alone, and that we will build a Jamaica that grows kinder as it grows older. Because if we are blessed to live long enough, we will each one day be the face in the photograph, the voice in the video, hoping the world still has a warm place for us.

How would you want to be treated? Let us treat them exactly so.

Dr Chris Tufton, CD, MP, is Jamaica’s minister of health and wellness. Email: cctufton@gmail.com