my article published in Woman's Era august 1st week edition
The new India is
obsessed with youth power and refuses to recognize the problems of the rapidly
growing elderly population.
India, at
present has 81 million elders (60+) i.e., 7.7% of the total population and it
is projected that by 2050, quarter of the population will be elders. 78% live
in the villages and they are very poor. We should not forget that in India 33% of
the population lives below poverty line. Therefore, the poor senior's number is
23 millions Mathew Cherian, chief executive of Help Age India, said,
"Seven out of 10 elderly people in India are below the poverty line but
just 10 percent of our elderly are getting pension,” - Voicing equal concern,
former Chief Election Commissioner M.S. Gill said, “Something is being done,
but very little.” He said, "The problems concerning the elderly were very
different in urban and rural India,
and the issue should be tackled accordingly".
In the urban India, loneliness is the main problem to the
seniors due to empty nest syndrome. But the lonely seniors can cope up with the
problem of loneliness with facilities they can arrange with help of their
regular income like pension since many of them have retired from organised
sector or get second carriers or join paid senior citizens homes. Their
children are better off with good employment status and hence do not consider
parents as financial burden. . But rural poor seniors face serious problems
Through out their life most of the rural senior citizens
have worked in the unorganized sectors. They have no pension, savings, or
assets and hence 50% of them are fully dependent and 20% partially. Their
family members are also poor and in debt
due to deterioration in the agricultural sector and hence care of the
elders become a burden, resulting in neglect and abuse and abandonment .Hence even in the ripe old age they are
forced to work. The widowed senior's
position is very pathetic. Unable to work, they are mostly abused by the
daughter in laws. Most of them undergo semi starvation and suffer due to mal
nutrition based deceases and there is no timely medical care. The pension given
to the poor seniors by the central and state government together at present is
only Rs 400 and highly inadequate to
their needs under the present inflation level. . It is not easy to get this
pension and hence they have bribe on the middlemen, pay commission to postmen
every month ... Recently we have read reports of postmen's involvement in
exploiting the poor seniors in Tamil Nadu . Sometimes their own kith and kin
compulsorily snatch this money to meet their family's emergency needs. Rural
clinics do not have geriatricians to attend to their age related problems and
therefore, they rot with prolonged illness. The senior citizens homes and
geriatric care are totally nil in the rural areas
The children of modern India do not
treat all the seniors with dignity. India's traditions of respect to
elders and dignified treatment to them have disappeared along with e breakdown
of the joint family system. When they are not productive any more, they are
abused by their own kith and kin, .Abuse may be physical, and mental and
continuous abuse results in psychological trauma that drives them to depression
or suicide or to come out of their homes and wander in the streets as destitute
or beggars or as mentally unbalanced persons. Thousands of seniors who are
driven away from home wander in the Indian states in this manner. . Under such
circumstances, they come to the conclusion that the prolonged life is not
blessing but a curse.
There has been limited research
into the nature and extent of elder abuse and it is often argued that the
absence of such data is a reflection of the low priority given to the needs of
the senior citizens in this country. Mr. Pran Nath Malik, a retired
government servant tells
that in Himachal Pradesh, "The population of old people are tens of
millions. As about half of the total population is living below the poverty
line, the assistance provided by the government is negligible. Social and
religious organizations also are not doing much. We can see many elderly living
as beggars in the big cities. Many die of hunger." hence that state was
the first state to introduce the maintenance of old persons Act in 1996 itself.
At that time many were wondering what is the need for such an Act in a country
like India
with it's tradition of venerating elders.
But, the government of India was forced
to introduce The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act in
2007 which makes the neglect of parents a cognizable offence. In other words
through this Act the government tell the children" look after your parents
or go to jail". This Act grants the elders the right to get maintenance by
moving the tribunal constituted under the law. But how many of the poor rural
elders are aware of the passage, provisions and the recourse to this law? Will
this act help the poor seniors when their children themselves are having hand
to mouth existance? Since the passage of the law only 7 cases were filed under
this law either because, the parents do
not like their children to go to
jail or they are not aware of the
passage of this law or they are afraid
they might be driven out of their homes if the seek justice through this law.
Experts
on the care of the elderly present various suggestions
Counseling is needed for the
poor families on the care of the elders and extended support facilities to help
them to bear the burden of the elders. More number of free senior
citizens homes in the rural areas. Arrangements for mobile clinics
to attend to the disabled and chronically or terminally ill elders. Pension for the poor elders
should be raised at least to Rs 1000 and easily it should be made available to
the poor seniors Strict supervision over the
running of free senior citizen homes. Alzheimer should be included in
mentally ill diseases group in the census.
Welfare measures should include
nutritious food medical and insurance facilities. Social security has to be integrated with
anti-poverty programmes. It is also important to provide
financial support to low income family groups having one or more elderly
Persons. .
Taking social, economic and
cultural changes into consideration there is a need to effectively solve the
emerging problems of the elderly. There
is a need to pay greater attention to the increasing awareness on the ageing
issues and its socio-economic effects . A national level elder's help
line is also an immediate need. The government can provide free
land to the NGOs taking care of the elders and every senior citizen home should
have the service of a gerontologist or geriatrician as a consultant. It is not necessary that only the
government should take care of the elders. The well off sections can also
donate liberally or offer sponsorship for few poor elders and the income tax
exemption for such donations can be enhanced. The corporate social
responsibility can also be extended to the care of the poor elders and they can
participate with the government in establishing a number of free old age homes
covering the entire country, because it is a gigantic task in which private
public partnership is needed. The schools and colleges should sensitise the student's community on the need
to treat the seniors with love care on the World Abuse Awareness Day, i.e. June
!5th ,
The problems concerning the
elderly are serious in nature. The number is growing and hence a separate
ministry might be needed to tackle
these problems in an efficient manner, if the elders have to spend their
sunset years peacefully. After all ,they have contributed to the nation and to
their families through out their productive life through their hard work .They
should not be forced to consider their
prolonged life as a burden , but, as a blessing since through their prolonged
life, they get an opportunity to use
their wisdom and experience for the betterment of the society.
Now, in a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court
on Friday recognised that a terminally ill patient can write a "living
will" that permits doctors to withdraw life support, saying a person with
no will to live shouldn't suffer in a comatose state. Vice president
of Confederation of Medical Associations in Asia and Oceania, and former IMA
president Dr K.K. Aggarwal, said strict guidelines should be put in place to
ensure that there is no abuse of the ‘living will’ by relatives of the senior
patients.
The caregiver of senior citizens may get fed up and frustrated,
and unconsciously may make the patient feel that he or she has become a burden
and should not live anymore, he said, adding, “This is one aspect which we need
to focus on. When a person seeks (passive) euthanasia, the attitude of the relatives
providing care should be considered and opinion of doctors should be taken.”
Senior Kerala priests said the Supreme Court judgment also fear that the
judgment could be misused
No comments:
Post a Comment