They were found in gutters, on streets, in bushes. They were boarded on trains, deserted in hospitals, dumped at temples. They were sent away for being sick or outliving paychecks or simply growing too old.
By the time they reached this home for the aged and unwanted, many were too numb to speak. Some took months to mouth the truth of how they came to spend their final days in exile.
“They said, ‘Taking care of him is not our cup of tea,’” says Amirchand Sharma, 65, a retired policeman whose sons left him to die near the river after he was badly hurt in an accident. “They said, ‘Throw him away.’”
In its traditions, in its religious tenets and in its laws, India has long cemented the belief that it is a child’s duty to care for his aging parents. But in a land known for revering its elderly, a secret shame has emerged: A burgeoning population of older people abandoned by their own families.
This is a country where grandparents routinely share a roof with children and grandchildren, and where the expectation that the young care for the old is so ingrained in the national ethos that nursing homes are a relative rarity and hiring caregivers is often seen as taboo. But expanding lifespans have brought ballooning caregiving pressure, a wave of urbanization has driven many young far from their home villages and a creeping Western influence has begun eroding the tradition of multigenerational living.
Courtrooms swell with thousands of cases of parents seeking help from their children. Footpaths and alleys are crowded with older people who now call them home. And a cottage industry of nonprofits for the abandoned has sprouted, operating a constantly growing number of shelters that continually fill.
The biggest reason for putting parents in an elderly home here in the West is because these elders require constant medical care that their kids can’t provide.
“That their kids can’t provide” needs to be explained. Often it means they don’t have time or desire to.
From the post, “They were sent away for being sick, Or outliving paychecks, or simply growing too old.”
Same situation in US, except we have social security. Old people get sent to homes for being sick or too old all the time.
People suffering from dementia require around the clock specialized care. That’s something a person that isn’t educated in that field can’t give. And since dementia is on the rise it’s the number one reason why old people are put into a care home. At least in my country. In my country the stereo typical retirement home doesn’t exist anymore. Most old people stay in their own home and they get help at home by a professional and family members. They won’t be send into a home unless they require around the clock care.
Retirement homes ≠ being discarded on the streets though, does it?
You can’t blame teh west for every failing of eastern culture. Apples to figs.
