An old age,age old problem

I'm listening to a radio program regarding the care of elderly people when they can't care for themselves.   Its  chilling to listen to the pathos of an increasing dilemma in 2014.
People are living longer, by quite a number of years which of course means that old people are becoming much more frail than in generations when, conveniently we died in our late sixties.
A report out this week describes the situation that by 2017 the people needing care outstrip the family members who could offer, in all except the final stages, care for their parents. The trend, to house the old in 'care homes' has become, apart from anything else, horrendously expensive, £900 per week.  It also questions our guilt, or otherwise, for not keeping the 'oldies' under our care. The argument runs, the parent looked after the children throughout their childhood when they were in need, why not look after the parent in their time of need ?
The calls to the program were a mixture. Some admitting they couldn't cope, or didn't feel they should have to cope and calls, largely from the Muslim society who said it was their 'responsibility' to care for their parents and that was the end of the matter !      
One of the disadvantages of modern living in the fast lane  is that as we max our credit we have to keep running to stand still. The thought of giving up our time to unpaid work is impossible to consider, our time is defined by our debt and we simply have to hope others will take up this care responsibility. Even the word, responsibility has little meaning for many, their lives have been absorbed in 'self' to such an extent that to look outside that particular box is unthinkable.
I myself have enormous guilt towards the way I treated my own Mother. After my Dad died she was shattered. I was there in the early stages to help, even though my family were in South Africa. I brought her over to us to live with us in Jo'burg and  tried to negotiate a situation where she would stay with us. With no blame attached it didn't work out and I was forced to see her return to her home in Bradford. Why I didn't rent a flat for her in Joburg and provide the proper support, still racks me to this day but this is only one man's story of the difficulty in resolving these sort of family orientated, age old, care related problems.