Senior Citizens

Advancement in medical sciences has made our life much longer. But long life has its associated problems too. In the existing socio-economic set-up of our country old people, whom we call ‘senior citizen’ endearingly or as a token of respect to them ,are in reality more often than not looked upon as unmitigated liability to their families and society at large. They’ve no social security, nor have any right to live with dignity either in many instances. Now joint family is more a concept than a reality. Nuclear families reign supreme. At ripe old age when limbs refuse to carry body, elderly people find no soul around to extend a helping hand to them .Such instances are not few and far between, rather plenty. Even at times they become the soft target of criminals. Population of old people is gradually increasing but no effort is being made to have proper infrastructure to cope with their problems, which a truly welfare state does. Old age homes are there- most of them belong to private organizations- but they’re too few compared to the need. Again, it’s true even if there were adequate number of such homes, how many of old people could afford to stay there? So government should come forward with definite plan and program for rehabilitation of these people who once served the country according to their ability instead of abandoning them as spent force.