THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala seems to be suffering from a confusion of mythical proportions. The basic health mechanisms the state had put in place right from formative years have ensured that we as a tribe lived longer. But we have no idea what to do with this boon of long life; we are the monkey with the flower garland.
We knew long before that our elder population was swelling, that they would in about two decades crowd out the youth. Yet, instead of evolving ways to care for them, we just ignored them like old photographs dumped on cobwebbed top shelves. The consequences, it has now been revealed, are scary: Our parents and grandparents who have lived beyond 60 years are dying faster. As a Planning Board official put it: “It is our elders we treat as cattle. We pamper them right till their fifties only to lead them to slaughter.”
Kerala still has the best life expectancy at birth (74.9 years) but the latest figures put out by the Registrar General of India (the custodian of census data) show that Kerala stands fifth when it comes to life expectancy at 60, and sixth when it comes to life expectancy at 70. (Life expectancy at a particular age is the average number of years a person is expected to live after that age.)
Geriatric care has always remained in the waiting list of the government’s concerns. For instance, ‘re-employment of the retired’ was one of Sam Pitroda’s ‘Ten Big Ideas’ for the state. But when the ideas were whittled down to five, the retired project was the first to go. Early retirement has been cited as a major cause of depression among 60-year-old men. “It suddenly isolates them, and makes them feel unwanted,” said P.K. Bhaskaran Nayar of Centre for Gerontological Studies.
After 70, when mobility becomes a factor, they are forced to detach themselves from the mainstream. A ‘guardian angel’ project, under which right from the plumber to the doctor will be at the beck and call of the aged, has been hanging fire for the last five years. “As part of the project, each of the state’s 400-odd police stations was asked to create a register of senior citizens in their jurisdiction. None has bothered,” a top Social Justice official said.
Even the minor, thoughtful, things are not being done for them. “Why can’t they have a preferential queue for elders in taluk, general and medical college hospitals,” Mr Bhaskaran Nayar said. “We have at least ensured that some primary health centres have such a queue and even drinking water facilities for the elders in the capital,” he added. Dr K.P. Aravindan, a former pathology professor, said that the re-introduction of the family doctor could do wonders for the aged. Dr Aravindan is part of the team formulating a new health policy for the LDF government.
According to Mr Nayar, it is not illness or hunger that is the old man’s scourge but loneliness. “There are many old people in the state who are discriminated at home. Everything might look fine from outside but within the house no one talks to them. Their sheets are not removed, their rooms are not kept clean and they are barred from watching television,” Mr Nayar said. The ‘Pakalveedu’ project was initiated in 2002 to address loneliness. “It is during the morning hours, after others in the home go to work or school, that the aged are left alone.
A ‘pakalveedu’ is like a creche for the elders, where they can be with others of their age and share their problems. There, it was felt, they would enjoy togetherness,” he said. “But morning houses are not patronised adequately,” he said. At the moment, it seems the aged in the state have only death for company.
