I agree with everything that both Vanessa and Michael said.
Speaking about accountability, the other piece of it might be education for all the health care providers right from the start. “That happens with age” may not be an appropriate response to any patient's concern. Integrate more geriatric training into all levels of health care, whether that's the physiotherapists or social service workers or the physicians themselves. It's recognizing that just because most people will develop a level of hearing impairment doesn't mean that should just be brushed off because they're getting older and they can't hear as well.
Integrating a level of education and understanding of how to prevent more serious chronic conditions from the start may help with the accountability process later on down the pathway if the answer that we revert to is not, “Well, that just happens” or “ You're getting older.” With that patient empowerment, those two together may help prevent a lot of more serious adverse outcomes.