Bhubaneswar: It’s apt to invoke famous Greek playwright Aristophanes’ quote ‘Old age is second childhood’ as regards the care and attention the elderly people need at this stage of life. However, it is an irony that most elderly parents are subject to all kinds of sufferings, thanks to their uncaring children. And this happens despite a law in place to counter such incidents.
As part of its study, Orissa POST found many heart-wrenching cases wherein the elderly have been abandoned by their children.
On an average, the five shelter homes in the City (Ashokanagar, Chandrsekharpur,Ganganagar, Bhimpur, Malisahi) receive about 50 elderly people per month. Matrumayee Priyadarshini of Odisha Patita Udhhara Samiti, which manages the shelter home for the government, said that the shelter homes are for everybody but we get most cases of old people who are deserted by their own children. More than 200 elderly people are now staying in City’s shelter homes.
One such hapless person is Ugrasen Sahoo, an 88-year-old man from Puri who has two sons and a daughter, but no one is ready to take care of him. His wife stays at her brother’s house. Sahoo sold his three-decimal land for his daughter’s marriage following which his sons snubbed him and his wife. It has been two years since Sahoo has met his sons.
Priyadarshini said, “Many a times we talk to their children and ask them to take the elderly back home for some weeks but they hardly agree.”
Priyadarshini said, “In most cases, parents suffer because they don’t want to face the hassles in fighting for their rights. The government provides `700 as pension to the widows and the elderly.
Sabitri Mullick, a resident of Kendrapara, and her husband were rescued from Bhubaneswar railway station last year. Later, her husband died of brain tumour. Abandoned by their children, they had to stay at Bhubaneswar railway station for a year before they were rescued. It is not that financial difficulties and illiteracy are the only causes of elderly people getting raw deal from their offspring, people from well-to-do families also do the same to their parents. The case of Amit Biswas (name changed) is a burning example. Biswas’s daughter and son-in law are physicians in Bangalore. He was a medical representative by profession. However, he was left in the railway station by his daughter. When shelter home authorities contacted his daughter, she said her husband didn’t want Biswas to stay with them.
Similar is the case of Indramani Pradhan of Khurda whose sons are working abroad. Patnaik used to work as a contractor and had a monthly earning of `45,000. However, his sons are not ready to take care of him.
Rajesh Mohapatra of Shree Krishna Old Age Home, which hosts more than 40 people, said the government is not helping the old age homes. “We had written to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik several times about provision of an ambulance, rent for home and certificates for the aged for quick treatment in hospitals, but to no avail. What we got was only assurance.”
SSEPD Minister Ashok Panda had informed the Assembly recently that 286 cases of atrocity against elderly persons were registered in the state in the last one year.
“As per the provisions in the Maintenance and Welfare of Senior Citizens (MWPSC) Act, 2007, victims can register cases against their uncaring children,” said Panda.
Out of 119 cases in which judgment was pronounced, only one person was punished, said the minister. A man from Puri was jailed for 25 days for neglecting his parents, he said, and added that the district Collector is the Appellate Authority for hearing of such cases.
He said construction work of 150 coordinated complexes for elderly people has begun in Khurda, Cuttack, Sambalpur, Puri, Ganjam, Bhadrak, Malkangiri, Balasore and Kandhamal district with an expenditure of
Rs 62 crore.
Arindam Ganguly