Missing — dignity for the elderly
THE viewing public sobs over corny television commercials that are aimed at touching the heart with love and honesty. Then, thousands blub when their favourite star has been voted off a reality show.
But when it comes to real pain, no one seems to care. Few shed any tears over the unkind way the elderly are treated.
The force of this failure on hapless elders hardly bears thinking about: the real tears flow; frustrated and depressed, they feel they have been stripped of self-worth and dignity; some are so downhearted they want to die.
Have we become a society that treats elderly parents and grandparents with such neglect and downright ingratitude?
When you encounter instances of family discard, it is deeply dreadful. This Easter Sunday, Michael, 70 and almost blind, will be put to bed for the night at 5pm to fit in with the time slot of his home help’s visit.
He lives alone and his five children and 12 grandchildren are not expected to visit him. They hardly do. Last Christmas, I came across Michael by chance: a neighbour of his who knows I am a journalist got in touch.
Then, two weeks ago, the latest in a reprehensible catalogue of heartlessness emerged in The Malay Mail’s Hotline involving a 72-year-old widow, Gracie Michael Christian who has not left her fourth floor apartment in Bandar Baru Sentul for three years. Again, a neighbour felt for her.
Despite having three adult children, who are all employed, and one living just two floors above her unit, none seem to have time to look after her — or even pay her a visit regularly.
Hotline alerted the Federal Territory Social Welfare Department to her predicament, but it could only offer counselling sessions to deal with Gracie’s “loneliness issues” because welfare officers found that her children could support her financially.
Clearly, the welfare department is out of sync with care for the elderly by merely offering counselling. It should refrain from considering Gracie and other old people in a similar predicament as a burden — a growing mass of demanding parasites.
Like Singapore, there must be laws enacted to punish children who abandon their parents when they are old or disabled. Abandonment however does not mean putting them in homes. They should be put in homes that can best cater to their physical and medical needs.
Sure, this is not always possible in a regular family environment, owing to the many commitments of the bread winner.
However, visiting them regularly in the homes should also be made mandatory by law.
The government should also issue special express passes for foreign caregivers to ensure quality care for the elderly who need special attention.
It should also subsidise the cost of hiring them and eventually pay it in full. Disabled people in the US for example, can get caregivers in the day time and night time charged to the government.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak recently weighed down on this issue, saying the nation had a new challenge in the care for elders when launching the Caring for Old Folks Awareness Campaign in Seremban.
Najib said there were 2.1 million (7.3 per cent) senior citizens in the country last year, and that the figure was expected to rise to 3.2 million (9.5 per cent) in 2020 to about 15 per cent in 2030.
He stated: “This is a new challenge for us. As the level of health improves, so does our lifespan.
“With this increasing lifespan, we can expect those who live above the age of 60 to increase each year.
“However, the burden of caring for these old folk should not rest entirely on the government. There must also be responsibility on the part of children towards their parents.”
Najib said he could not bear to see the number of old folk being left in homes and called on children to be more compassionate and loving towards their aged parents. He said although the government might be able care for these old folk, it could not give them the love and attention they needed, the way their own children could.
“They have sacrificed their whole lives to look after us and it is our duty to love them and care for them till their final day,” he added.
You can’t dispute the reality that the elderly are utterly cast as an economic drag on the young and the nation. Medical advances and population trends mean there are more and more old people having to be supported by younger generations.
The result is that society no longer acknowledges how much it owes to previous generations, and children no longer feel an obligation to look after their parents in old age.
We may claim that we are rushed off our feet, that our commitments at work don’t allow us the time to care for our elders.
But it is simply not good enough to absolve ourselves of responsibility and contract out the care we owe the generations that preceded us. Nobody pretends that looking after the elderly is anything but demanding.
I really don’t know how we can call ourselves a civilised nation when we so badly fail those who made this country and gave us a future.
The neglect of elderly relatives is a great cruelty of our age. In our heart of hearts, we all know that most of the old and infirm would be happier in the care of their own families.
The government would do well to champion the interests of older people through a Dignity for the Elderly campaign. Clearly, parents expect to be with their families until the end but aging dogs in kennels seem to have more of a life than many of them.
There was one moment last week that summed up how everything that could go wrong was going wrong for the MIC. On Wednesday, party president Datuk Seri Palanivel told newsmen at a press conference that MIC candidates for the coming general election must have “good looks” besides having the necessary leadership qualities.
When pressed to explain the good-looks criteria, he said: “Being handsome will be a plus point when he goes down to the ground to meet voters as they will want to approach him.”
If Palanivel is saying good looks can help attract people and would translate into more votes for the party, he has more or less just declared that the entire party would be wiped out at the polls.
The greatest danger for any leader is being laughed at — mockery is the hardest thing to recover from in politics.
The death of an African student at the hands of a mob of Rela men has shone a light on this breed of law enforcers that detractors accurately predicted would lead to the kind of confrontations that took the life of the Nigerian over the weekend.
Onochie Martins Nwanko, 38, was beaten to death by seven People’s Volunteer Corps (Rela) personnel on suspicion of having molested a cleaner at the Kajang condominium he was living in — putting even greater pressure on the authorities to review the involvement of such men in the controversial policing scheme where non-cops wear police uniforms during joint patrols.
Imagine if any of these Rela men involved in the death of the African were to don police uniform and patrol the streets under the much-criticised police community scheme involving support agencies involved in enforcing law and order.
Initial police investigation raises grave doubts as to whether the attack on Nwanko was justified.
It has to be determined quickly if the threat to the lives of the Rela men was imminent and extreme — if only to douse the anger among the migrant population here.
Media reports stated the condominium residents were unhappy that the management had placed Rela staff there to look after security.
The Africans living there have claimed the Rela personnel had constantly harassed them. Hate crime?
Multiple award-winning journalist Frankie D’Cruz is Editor-At-Large of The Malay Mail. He can be reached at [email protected]