does doctor know best? Who calls the shots for the most vulnerable amongst us? I don't know why they want me in here. I honestly don't. Life in the deep, deep south ` could you handle six months of Antarctic darkness? And the one and only Edna. Hello, possums. I'm Dame Edna. I'm an honorary Kiwi, really. I'm going to be revealing what's in store for you when you come to my wonderful new show in August. Due to the live nature of Close Up, captions for some items may be incomplete. ONE News captions by Hannah Reynolds and John Ling. Close Up captions by Pippa Jefferies and Richard Edmunds. No one wants to think of themselves as old and vulnerable. No one wants to be parted from a loved one. But that's exactly what's happening to Verona Moynihan. She's 80 now, with dementia, and after 58 years with husband John, she's been told she must stay in a retirement home without him. The pair are gutted. They say doctors have got it wrong. But do they? And who has the right to tell our elderly how to live their lives? We'll ask those questions in a moment. But first, Matt Chisholm with the Moynihans' story. SLOW GUITAR MUSIC I don't know why they want me in here. I honestly don't. She feels she's a prisoner. She's being detained. I'm lost. I'm lost. I really feel... that the world's left me behind. They're lost and desperate. After 58 years of marriage, John and Verona Moynihan have been ripped apart. It's the worst thing they could have done. Verona (80) now forced to live in this Napier retirement village against her will. Why do I suddenly get... 'bonk, you can't do anything'? To me, that is cruelty. She should be here. This is where she is happy ` life, liberty and happiness. She was living here. She's existing there. I want to be in my home. If I get very old, that's a different story, but I'm not... I'm not that old yet. Naturally, Verona wants to go home. Dr John Gommans, the man in charge of her care. That's what she knows. She doesn't understand why that's not possible, and the duty of care falls back on health professionals like us. The Moynihans' separation began back in January, when Verona ` a double amputee from the age of 13 ` was admitted to Hawke's Bay Hospital with abdominal and cardiac problems. And then there was the need to attend to pressure cares and concerns about her skin integrity and hygiene. She did not! She didn't have them till weeks after she went in there. After six weeks in hospital, and with those abdominal and cardiac problems under control,... There you are. ...Dr John Gommans and his team decided that Verona needed round-the-clock hospital-level care ` something they say couldn't be provided at home. First, there's the level of dementia, which means she can't attend to her own safety and needs reliably. Secondly, she's got that long-standing above-knee amputation of both legs, which means she's totally dependent on her upper-body strength to do things. He says I can't manage and she can't manage. 'She'll have to have 24-hour care.' And I said, 'Well, give us 24-hour care for two days, and I'll prove you wrong.' And he says 'no' ` a very definite no. But I'm quite certain that within a couple of days, the persons who were providing the personal care would say, 'We're redundant. There's nothing here for us to do.' The only person who insists that she'd be better at home is John. Everyone else has major concerns about that. Well, John and Verona. But although we found her completely lucid, her opinion no longer counts. She's been independently assessed by a psychogeriatrician of their choosing, who knew her from before and has been monitoring her progress, who confirms that she's wholly lacking in capacity to make decisions. Oh my God. Where has he got that from? Some people say that 'you're losing your memory', and I know perfectly well what they're talking about. Someone with Alzheimer's can appear lucid, but that doesn't mean they understand the implications of the issues in front of them or the consequences of decisions they're making. When John took Verona home for a visit, we saw what she was capable of. Any pain? > Oh, no. No. When I first started doing it, it used to be quite hard. But now that I'm older, it's easy as winking. VACCUUM CLEANER HUMS Is she still mobile enough to live in this house? > Oh, more than. She does the vacuum-cleaning, the dusting, washing, ironing... She'll make some beds if I don't beat her to it. (CHUCKLES) < Do you know if anyone has done an assessment with both John and Verona at their home < since she was first admitted to hospital? Not since she was discharged from hospital. I know that there have been assessments at home while she was in hospital. I can't comment whether she was physically present. But I can say that we had lots of assessments before she got admitted, and they were struggling then. A claim Verona's husband and now power of attorney strongly refutes. If he thinks your wife needs hospital care 24-7, then she probably does. > No, she doesn't. And he` he thinks, and he won't let us prove him wrong. I think the problem for John is love is blind. He wants his wife home. And I can totally understand that. But I have to do what's the right thing for her. She's my patient. But of course, this patient says she wants to stay at home, even if it means she's not as safe as she could be. I was, I think, 9 or 10 when I fell over at school and... got my thing. And so what's the difference? It's only at the other end. How far are you prepared to go with this? > As far as I have to. I feel wild; absolutely wild. Joining me now, Dr Gavin Pilkington. He's a psychogeriatrician ` an expert in assessing people in exactly Verona's condition. Thanks for joining us. Whose call is it in these circumstances ` the medical people, like you, or the family? that's a good question. It's a complex one. Generally, doctors would regard ourselves as having a duty to give advice to the family or caregiver. We would usually revert if need be with ethical concerns to a legal process. you would get a court order? with a make an application under the Personal Rights Act. how often would you overrule the wishes of the family? in 20 years, I have never personally done that. Every decade or so there have been instances where we disagree. the doctors they believe they're doing the right thing. Jon believes he's doing the right thing. Is he �entitled to prove the doctors wrong? if you said that I wasn't capable looking after my wife, am I entitled to say, 'Come and I'll show you?' it depends on the depth of concern. The doctors will be working with a team of occupational therapists, etc. That's with the same piece of law. this goal to achieve safety and well=being. do we have the facilities here to help people like Jon and Verona? our system is predicated on care for older people at home. That's at home with family. f Jon thinks he's right and the doctors are wrong, what would he do? an application would have to be made to the family court for this to be heard. We as doctors do not have jurisdiction to order someone into care against the world. does this happen? this is not uncommon with dementia. 75 percent of people living with dementia live in a community. Thanks.� As always, we'd love to hear from you about this issue. Go to our website, email us or find us on Facebook. Now, you'll remember from last night the story of Viv. She lost $240,000 to a dating scam. We got a lot of emails from you on the issue. Some, to be frank, were a bit cruel, and some had a similar story. Fay says,... Wayne emailed,... Amongst the messages were several asking us to fix them up with Viv if she was still on the lookout for love. Well, we can report Viv is in a happy relationship now, so we won't be doing any dating services ourselves. Coming up, life at the bottom of the world. What does it take to endure six months of no sun in Antarctica? Plus,... Don't forget, I'll be talking to Gill ` lovely Gill ` about my new show, and my last show, in August, in Auckland. You'll need to learn these new rules. This is rule change number two. When you're turning right from the bottom of a T-intersection with no signs or signals, you'll need to give way to right-turning vehicles at the top of the T. Think ` Let's see that again. Top of the T goes before me. These changes come into effect at... If you fancy a snack tonight, spare a thought for the dozen-odd Kiwis in Antarctica. They're only weeks away from running out of fresh food. That's because when winter sets in and all access to the ice stops, they'll only have what they've stockpiled. As Heather du Plessis-Allan found out, that's not the only difference of life in the deep freeze. HAUNTING MUSIC This is as dark as we saw Antarctica,... WIND WHISTLES ...the 24-hour daylight of the summer slowly giving way to the 24-hour night of winter. Soon the continent will be cut off from the rest of the world. MUSE'S 'UPRISING' Good thing they've got all these boxes of tucker, then. There's sausages. We're guessing pork. Before the darkness sets in, the freezer at Scott Base is loaded with enough frozen food for a year. Pumpkin. WOMAN GRUNTS > PEOPLE CHATTER The last flight in brought the last of the fresh fruit and veggies. All the fresh fruit runs out pretty fast. Everyone eats that. Bananas go probably in three weeks. Kiwifruit will go really fast. All the stone fruit from summer, it'll be a couple of weeks, and it'll be gone. Do you find it a challenge to cook without all this stuff that, you know, we just take for granted? I do miss it. Like, you go through recipe books and you see beautiful fresh fruit and veggies, and you think, 'Cool,' and then you're, like, 'Oh, damn, frozen broccoli again.' When the freshies run out, it's down to frozen fruit and veggies... Mixed veggies. ...for months. But from what we saw, it doesn't look like they mind frozen food too much. Sweet. (LAUGHS) These are Scott Base's winter staff. They're a good bunch and proud of their patch. One of them, Hayden, took us on a day trip. PEOPLE CHATTER Hayden wanted to show us their, wait for it, bach. Inside ` every bit like the ones at home. Outside ` still a snowstorm. Whoo. Back at base, Mosgiel sparky Steve Williams is a veteran, now into his third winter on the ice. PEOPLE CHATTER From our experience, much of his time will be spent in the bar, where a beer only costs $2 because in Antarctica, there's no tax. Steve reckons after four months of darkness and no vitamin D from sunlight, some of the team develop a condition called T3. It's, like, simple things. You'll just forget where you put something or forget where you were going. And you can just see someone walking down one of the linkways, and they'll stop and go, 'Where the hell was I walking? I don't even remember.' You'll just see people lose their coffee cups, and you'll see things left in the most oddball places. According to Steve, the downside to an Antarctic winter is the static electricity. Yep, you've got to watch out for metal flies when you're doing the dishes. Goes right through the old fella. Yep, metal zip, metal sink. It's a nasty zap, that one, I tell you. LAUGHTER So we got Steve to prove it's as bad as he says, but it took a little bit of dressing up. You reckon this is how you build up your static electricity? This is the one. You've got the proper footwear on, the ideal outfit. You got the polar fleece, the big shoes ` the big shoes ` and you just get them scoofing, and you build up a bit of a charge down the hallway. We'll see if we can get you to crack on one of these poles. OK, so I got to go up and down, right? Yeah, up and down. Give them a good rub-up. You ready? Steady. You better see this. HIGH-PITCHED BUZZING That sound you can hear is the static build-up just before... CLICK! (SCREAMS, LAUGHS) Just in case you didn't see it, that's a spark coming off my finger. Did you feel that? (LAUGHS) Yeah. Did you see it? We caught one of the last flights out of Antarctica. Since then, Bobbie the chef sent us this photo to show how dark it's getting outside. No doubt by now she's counting out what's left of the freshies. < By the end of it, do you miss your fresh stuff? Definitely. You miss the crunch. All of this will be eaten in just a few weeks. It'll be a frozen menu down on the ice. WIND WHISTLES Well, good luck to the boys. And as we saw, there's no chance they're going to starve. In fact, the food is so good at Scott Base, when I went there a few years ago, I came back 4kg heavier, and it never seems to go away again. Coming up ` Hello, possums. I'm Dame Edna. I'm an honorary Kiwi, really. I'm going to be revealing a little bit of myself to beautiful Gill about what's in store for you when you to come to my wonderful new show in August. It'll be the end of an era ` no more waving gladdies; goodbye to the purple perm. Never again will we hear, 'Hello, possums.' This August, Dame Edna Everage is packing it in, and her final final show will be in Auckland. Gill Higgins had the pleasure of her company for a cosy little chat about what she anticipates will be her 'stupendous send-off'. The time to come to Auckland will be...? < ...August. August. She promises a sparkling spectacle come rain or shine. What's the weather like in August? < Oh, I'd say it's pretty much what it's like now. Raining. (LAUGHS) Living in Auckland is like living on deck of a ship. It's true. (WHOOSHES) But fun. APPLAUSE It's all about a bit of fun with Dame Edna, often at the expense of others. Did you hear me clunking down those stairs? No, I didn't. Well, you probably thought I was Heather McCartney, but I'm not. For more than 40 years, teasing and taunting... Have you heard of him ` John Key? (CLEARS THROAT) He's a dwarf. Hello, Mark. LAUGHTER ...in a career which apparently began right here. This has never been revealed. I did a test show in Auckland at the university. I'm beginning to relax now. (LAUGHS) I mean, you certainly didn't look like you do now. In fact, quite the drab housewife. I wouldn't say drab, but I was a very shy, unobtrusive woman. I never thought that I would be a global gigastar. PIANO MUSIC PLAYS (YELLS) She's all class. Eat your heart out, Catherine Zeta Jones. So, when you come to NZ, what are you looking forward to? Watties tinned asparagus. Heat it up on toast with a little butter. But she's looking forward to a bit of culture too. The best art gallery in the Southern hemisphere. All the art galleries in Australia are jealous of Auckland. Is there anything that Kiwis should be jealous of Australia for? Between you and me, offhand, no. And what about a trip to Palmerston North to visit where Madge came from? # Today I feel so happy, so happy... Madge, being a Kiwi and Dame Edna's loyal bridesmaid. Living with Madge has been my experience of living with a Kiwi. < Good or bad, then? Bad. # I don't know why I'm happy... # Madge used to sleep with me. I think unhealthy, because her feet were so cold. APPLAUSE Never be in close relationship with your bridesmaid. Are you? I don't think many people sleep with their bridesmaids. Oh, you'd be amazed, particularly... particularly in parts of NZ, particularly in Warkworth. You, stand and tremble. It's never just her show; she likes joining people in. Always I involve the audience more than any other artist. Even when it's an audience of one. Do you share your income with your husband? < Yes, I do. Not a good idea. Time you looked at the books. Is he your first husband? Deep breaths. Deep breaths, OK. Her own husband gone, she's got a second wind. You turned down Richard. What a fool I was. I know. I'm a bit of a cougar. Can't we play the game again? I'm afraid we can't. And it's been non-stop, from Celebrity Blind Date... APPLAUSE, WHISTLING ...to last year's royal wedding. I wore one of my best frocks for that occasion. < Do you think Will's made a good choice? I think he did, you know. I think he's lucky, actually. Would you choose him? < No. (CHUCKLES) No. It takes a lot to impress her. People say to me, 'Who do you admire most in the world?' I'd have to say me. She has had this lane in Melbourne named after her... It's horrible. It used to be called Brown Alley. ...and a portrait in toast. It was novel, wasn't it? (CHUCKLES) Special tributes for a special lady whose touring days are nearly over. Or are they? You have done a tour before called My First Last Tour, I believe. I did call it that, but this is my last last tour. < So this really is your last`? It really is, Gill. She's probing, this woman. Of course, I will feel the urge to appear in public, but I will resist it. We go back a long way, don't we, darling? As will Sir Les, a last tour for the charming attache. I'm a horny old bastard. He's going to be giving a cooking demonstration on stage, and audience members will be invited to eat some of those lovely dishes. Good luck. Will it be a sad goodbye? It'll be joyous, really. I've done my first show in NZ. Why don't I do my last show there as well as a tribute to Kiwiland? APPLAUSE Feedback now, and lots on the fate of John and Verona Moynihan. Caitlin says,... Pete writes,... Andy has another view. Graham says,... And that's NZ Close Up. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air.