Our View: Time for authorities to get proactive over social ills

It’s a well-known but terrible shame that to foment social change in Cyprus there has to be a long line of victims before anyone is prompted to bring it about, whether it be the handling of rape cases or those involving missing foreign women brutally murdered by a serial killer, or a teen bullied into drinking himself to death.

These instances are only the ones that hit the headlines. The death of a British woman at the hands of her husband of 56 years late last year is another case in point that highlights apparent failings in the social fabric.

Although there seems to be a clear legal case here for premeditated murder, it appears there were other factors that preceded 74-year-old David Hunter’s decision to suffocate his wife Janice, 75.

It will be up to the court to determine the true motive. It was after all a horrible and violent death that was very far removed from the notion of assisted dying or ‘dying with dignity’ as it’s often called, but the circumstances that led to his decision may also matter for society as a whole.

It emerged on Monday following a court hearing that Janice Hunter, who was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2016, had seen her health deteriorate after the outbreak of the pandemic.

Difficulties accessing treatments had made life unbearable by all accounts. Her health situation had forced the couple to reportedly sell their Paphos flat and rent a maisonette to afford the treatment she needed.

We don’t know how many more people are suffering due to the withholding of healthcare during the pandemic or how many postponed routine operations and delays in medical screenings have ended in more serious disease or death.

Where was the help for David Hunter and his wife when they needed, at the very least, affordable caregiving assistance? It is known, through studies on elder abuse that an overburdened caregiver is likely to make poor decisions, often due to feeling overwhelmed and unable to cope.

This is another issue likely to come to the fore when some elderly person dies as a result of abuse outside a family setting. Cyprus has no screening process in place to ensure the dignified treatment of seniors so there is no way of knowing the extent of this particular problem as yet.

Shortly after Janice Hunter’s death, MPs began a debate on assisted dying and euthanasia – the former is patient led and the latter is doctor led. Again, this comes after a death rather than having already been under discussion by thinking ahead and looking at what other EU countries have been doing for years.

It’s not rocket science to predict that social issues that have arisen in other countries will, sooner or later, be visited on Cypriot society and need to be prepared for. It’s high time authorities moved from being reactive to proactive when it comes to dealing with social ills.