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| Sunday, 14 December 2003 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Darkening shadows... The sunset years
The protection of the Rights of elders act No.9 of 2002 defines an elder as one who is over 60 years of age. Low birth and death rates and increased life expectancy have accelerated the ageing fraction of our population which is expected to be 20 per cent in 2025, doubled from the current percentage of ten. Yet the preparatory state measures to look after this retiring elderly population, such as subsidised medicine, food, transport and special accessibility to public amenities, are yet to be put in operation. The National Secretariat for the Elderly is currently conducting an island-wide survey to collect information of elders. Two hundred and twenty thousand elders from all social classes all over the island are registered under the Social Services Identity Card (SSIC) issued by the NSE, which requests more elders to register under this scheme. An SSIC permits an elder to obtain a five per cent discount on medical drugs at any Osu Sala and a 0.5 per cent of additional interest on the Senior Citizens' Fixed Deposits at the National Savings Bank and Bank of Ceylon. The NSE has requested that the SSIC holders be given priority in queues and services in hospitals, transport, post offices, banks, police, legal and other services but this has not yet become a total reality for which extra facilities need to be created and the culture of treating elders with due respect needs to be re-inculcated in our society. By producing two stamp sized photographs, the national identity card and a completed application, the SSIC can be obtained over the counter from the NSE or from the relevant Divisional Secretary's office. Elders uncared for and unsupported by their children can write to the Board for Determination of Claims for Maintenance by Elders for redress. The Board which has the power of a District Court, summons both parties for mutual discussion and orders a suitable monthly payment to the elder. But the issue of the destitute spinster or bachelor remains to be addressed as the only option available is a Home for the Aged, with no mechanism for maintenance from siblings. The power of admitting elders to Homes for the Aged devolves on the Provincial Social Services Directors. When an elder in need of a home contacts the NSE, he/she is referred to the relevant Provincial Social Services Ministry. A Home could have both paying and non-paying sections and the latter could serve as a boarding with plenty of freedom for elders who have saved enough finances to avail themselves of a comfortable old age. by Jayanthi Liyanage We found him at the Pettah bus stand. A frail old man, settled for the evening on a concrete block, one hand clutching his walking stick, the other clasping a sili sili bag of his meagre belongings.
At the click of the camera, he turned with a smile, and burst into tears when we began to enquire about his whereabouts and well-being. "Aney, mahattayai nonai budu wenawa, mawa nivasayakata gihilla dammoth, (the gentleman and the lady will attain buddhahood if you can put me in a home)," he cried, telling us of his abandonment of home and offspring as he could not live in what he described to be an obnoxious environment. Seelaratne (not his real name) in his mid seventies had come all the way from the far south to take temporary refuge at the Pettah bus stop. He spoke of a son working in the middle east and two daughters employed in factory work and said that he was pained at the somewhat loose, unconventional life they were leading. "They wouldn't listen to my advice and I couldn't bear to stay in that home any longer," said Seelaratne. None of the offspring or any relatives had come in search of him to take him back home. He showed us his swollen legs which needed medication, for which he intended visiting the General Hospital the following day. A kind mahattaya brought him a packet of lunch daily and that was the only regular meal he had. A few yards away, huddled among a crowd waiting for the bus, was Ranapala, his grey head of hair adding more to his fifty years. Remaining single among several married siblings, he had thought it wiser to leave home and find paltry redemption in piece meal labour on the streets, rather than suffer the turbulence of his parental home, squabbling with his brothers and sisters. "My parents died a while back and my married elder sister now occupies the parental home," said Ranapala. "But I don't want to have anything to do with them and prefer to eke out a living on my own," he said, his resigned tone revealing his helplessness to fight for what may be rightly his. Kamalawathi, a darkened elderly woman, her right leg wrapped in bandages and her body in a threadbare saree, was seated with a heap of shabby baggage by the side of a suburban bus route. The road was where she washed, changed her clothes, ate and attended to her daily physical needs. "For about thirty years I kept house in .... Hamu's bungalow where Hamu and Nona Hamu treated me very well," said Kamala. When the two employers died about four years ago, Kamalawathi found herself being ill-treated by their children who saw no need of her services and perceived her to be an unnecessary burden in the house. She was summarily turned out with just a months pay of Rs. 3,000. "Where can I go, Nona?", Kamala questioned through tears. "That was the home I knew for many years of my life and I don't even know the colour of my own relatives. This road is where I have to die now." Old people, homeless, with nowhere to go. To whom can they turn for food, shelter, medication; and nursing in the later years when they can no longer fend for themselves? Did their lives run on a rhythm discordant and "misfitted" in a world which seemed to increasingly belong to the young? The discarded and disenchanted elderly life you saw on the streets was only the tip of the ice berg. The most crucial issues of our senior citizenry lay hidden in the veil of respectability, in the low middle, the middle and the wealthy, upper classes of society, both urban and rural. "Elders are more neglected in Colombo, more than in rural areas," says W. Yamuna Chitranganie, Director, National Secretariat for the Elders (NSE). "In the letters and complaints the Secretariat receive, we have found that children in Colombo do not allow their parents to live with them. They do not offer meals to the parents or look after them."
"Usually, people dump unwanted pups and kittens at a temple. But the latest trend now is to dump parents at a temple which happens in my temple at least four times a year," is a comment which had been made by the Bellanwila Raja Maha Viharadhipathy at the last meeting Yamuna had attended at a Home for the Aged. As she identified, the biggest problems the urban elders faced were loneliness and lack of care in a social milieu in which married and unmarried children alike had to work for a living and one hardly talked to one's neighbours. In certain cases where children had gone abroad for studies or permanent work, the parents were left unattended. The NSE is trying to address this emerging social change by opening Day Care Centres for the Elders and developing the concept of "care-givers." 5,800 Elders, both men and women, were already reported to be in 161 Homes for the Elderly registered under the NSE, with around 200 unregistered Homes sheltering more. For the rural elders, the lack of financial means was the major problem while the rural culture allowed for plenty of social interactions. The "Pin Padi" of Rs. 100 a month they received as public assistance barely served its purpose. Failing health was the prime factor common to both urban and rural elders, with high costs required for regular medical care. "Yet, in a country which has 2 million elders, we do not have a single Geriatrician (a medical doctor specialised in nurturing the elderly)", revealed Dr. Deepthi Perera, Director, Youth, Elderly, Disabled and Displaced Persons, Ministry of Health. "We have been agitating for this cause but have not succeeded in developing Gerontology (the nurture of old people) in Sri Lanka," corroborated V.R. Amarasingham, President, Ageing Gracefully, which tries to inculcate in the elderly the attitude that the best hospital is within them. "The matrons of the country's Homes for the Elderly are often glorified cooks and not even nurses!" An elderly person seeking entry at a Home for the Aged needs to have a guardian who can vouch for him. He should also be able to produce a clean bill of health. What about those who are sick or abandoned on the road with no way of providing either? While the Homes take in the "young-old" who still can attend to their own needs, when they become too old, terminally ill or too ill to take care of themselves, their custody is generally given over to a surviving family member. Where does this leave the "old-old" who are in the "departure lounge" with no kith and kin? Do not they also deserve to have a cared-for life and die with dignity amidst caring people? There is also the argument that the concept of Homes for the Elderly is not quite fitting with our culture inherited from the olden days when the first and the third generations grew together, the last learning a great deal from the first. An elder deserves to spend the sunset years of his/her life in one's familiar surroundings of home, but how the current generation of a consumer age could offer this peace and comfort can only be solved by one's own offspring. |
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