KATHMANDU, JULY 2
Some senior citizens living in old age homes are found to have been deprived of social security allowance and health benefits provided by the state due to lack of citizenship certificate, says a report recently published by the National Human Rights Commission.
It informed that the report was based on facts obtained from old age homes. "Some of the senior citizens had to end up in old age homes because they were insulted by their sons, daughters-in-law and husbands. It has also been found that some affluent and educated families too had left their parents in old age homes. Many others have also been forced to take refuge in old age home as their children do not take care of them and also take away their social security allowance," the report reads. It was observed that senior members of old age homes are not visited by their families, while some of them are ignorant about their families. It was also found that the manners of some old age home proprietors are not humane and they do not pay attention to food and cleanliness.
According to the report, old age homes were not following government standards and the buildings, toilets and building premises and surrounding environment were not senior citizen-friendly. There is no monitoring by the District Senior Citizens Welfare Committee. The office-bearers and proprietors of the committee are not even informed about such situation.
No provision was found to have been made for a separate senior citizen treatment room (geriatric ward) and necessary human resources for senior citizens were not available.
The facts obtained from monitoring, interaction and discussion show that poverty, family discord and disintegration, and the degradation of moral values in society had impacted senior citizens.
Being without a family and deprived of family affection and respect, and living as widows and widowers had forced them to go to old age home. Senior citizens are forced to take shelter in old age homes due to lack of awareness, lack of children's sense of responsibility, inter-generational conflict, and search for solitude and a religious place.
Most of the senior citizens in old age homes are suffering from some family, psychological and social problems and physical ailments.
Physically challenged due to increasing age, lack of proper nutrition, health problems, lack of family and humane behaviour, deprivation of citizenship, being forced to live a lonely life without society, rude behaviour of family members, among others, are the problems faced by senior citizens.
As some of the senior citizens, who led the family, society and the nation, are becoming financially, physically and mentally weak, the family feels the burden and puts them in old age homes.
Due to the influence of western culture, migration, foreign employment and other reasons, joint families have turned into nuclear families, and this has had impact on senior citizens, the NHRC said.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 3, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
