Kerre Woodham: Indignity of ageing and poor pay beautifully illustrated

I'm sure the people who are outraged at the photos in the nurses magazine Kai Tiaki, showing elderly rest home patients at their most vulnerable, believe they are acting in the best interests of the oldies in condemning the photos.

There's no doubt the pictures are disturbing. But we should ask ourselves why we find them so hard to view. Is it because we are concerned that the elderly men and women have been exploited, or is it because we fear that we too may find ourselves shrivelled, naked, incontinent and dependent on the kindness of poorly paid strangers? As Jonathan Swift put it so succinctly, "Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old".

It doesn't help that images of old people are seldom seen in the modern media. Their bodies are unfamiliar to us, unlike the young, firm, surgically refined and computer enhanced bodies that are deemed ideal.

Every inch of Paris Hilton's body has been exposed to the Western world and the solipsistic sex she had with her boyfriend of the time was downloaded from the net by millions. And yet surely the relationships depicted in the Kai Tiaki editorial are more intensely personal, interdependent and trusting than any of Ms Hilton's myriad relationships.

This is the reality of growing old for many of us. Doesn't matter how flash you were in your middle years - if the cards fall the wrong way, you may find yourself having your nappies changed and being spoonfed by someone on less than $15 an hour.

The work the carers do is low skilled and therefore undervalued. But anyone with an elderly parent or a spouse in care knows just how important these carers are.

No matter what pills we take or what snake oil we buy based on all sorts of spurious promises, it's inevitable that, eventually, our bodies, and in some cases our brains, betray us. Part of the acceptance of the final stage of life is the giving over of oneself to others, thus completing the circle of life that began when we were helpless babies.

There is no dignity in growing old, and there is no dignity in eking out an existence on less than $15 an hour. The Kai Tiaki photographic essay illustrates this beautifully.