After the nationwide lockdown imposed in March, calls from lonely elderly citizens from different parts of Bhubaneswar flooded Helpage India’s helpline number. There were requests ranging from delivery of daily essentials to support for health check-up. However, some requests sounded unreal. “We have everything, but no one to interact with. Please find someone with whom we could, at least, talk, everyday,” pleaded some callers.
“It not only surprised me, it stirred my emotion,” says Helpage India’s Odisha head, Bharati Chakra.
Even for Chakra who has been dealing with issues facing senior citizens for two decades, it was an unusual experience. She spent some time with some of these people; her colleagues also chatted with them at regular intervals. “Covid has shaken the lonely elderly ones, mentally,” puts Chakra.
Incidentally, the cases Chakra is referring to are not isolated ones. With the children chasing their career, in some other parts of the country or abroad, scores of such lonely aging parents are experiencing a different type of old age blues. For, the pandemic has further stretched the existing widening physical distance, between such parents and their children.
A case in point is Dibakar Tripathy, 75, a retired government servant. Days before the lockdown was imposed, Tripathy who was in Mumbai with his wife to attend a family event, fell seriously ill. As Tripathy was wheeled straight into a hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU), his worried septuagenarian wife desperately dialed their US-based son. The son, cajoling his mother, told not to worry.
Dutifully, he forwarded details of the health insurance policy so that his father’s hospitalisation costs are taken care of. However, what the mother was hoping for – someone by her side to attend to her husband – couldn’t be realised. Post recovery, the elderly couple is back in Odisha, thanks to the support of relatives. However, even four months after, the wait for their son’s visit continues.
“Covid has aggravated the emotional vulnerability of the elderly couples living alone, they never felt more helpless, before,” puts ex English professor, Chinmay Jena.
Jena’s colony in Bhubaneswar’s Old town locality has many such senior citizens like ex-reader, Kamala Prasad Mohapatra. He says, “Once one is over 65, a sense of insecurity creeps in and the absence of children is felt more. If your child is around, it gives the mental strength.”
While a majority of such ‘living alone’ elderly parents say their children, who are regularly in touch with them through mobiles, other gadgets, social media or digital mediums, also concede that the pandemic has erected a wall of uncertainty. When could they meet their children or play with the grand kids, worries them.
Forget about daily essentials, they can’t step out even for a leisurely walk as they are prone to Covid infection. Result: Many are feeling claustrophobic. It’s an issue in almost every city in India.
“The government should ensure delivery of daily provisions for senior citizens,” intones an ex-soldier, Col. Suranjan Bhuyan of Bhubaneswar.
“The government is doing that in many areas and it may extend the services to other places as well,” Chakra argues. “But, what about those needs, like going to banks, withdrawing cash from ATMs or regular health check-ups which the elderly have almost stopped in Covid era,” she asks.
Chakra suggests, “The need of the hour is to develop a localised, police verified, volunteer base. These volunteers can respond quickly to emergencies. Also, we must promote digital literacy among senior citizens.”
As per a June 2020 study titled ‘The Elder Story: Ground Reality’ by Chakra’s organisation, during Covid-19, a disturbing 62% of the elder respondents reported suffering from chronic diseases: asthma, hypertension, diabetes, cancer etc. Of these, 53% were from rural and 47% from urban areas.
According to the 2011 Census, those above 60 years of age constitute 8% of India’s population. A 2016 report by the social statistics division of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation puts the number of elderly at nearly 104 million: Rural (73 million) and urban (31 million). India is the second largest populated country in the global population of elderly citizens. According to the WHO estimate, the elderly population is increasing by 3.5% per year and by 2050 around 20% of our country will be seniors.
Sociologist Navaneeta Rath thinks the lonely parents have reconciled that they have to stay alone. They understand that after all, the children have the right to pursue their own career and live the way they wish. “With the growing threat of Covid infection, sealing of borders and grounding of the aviation sector, compression of distance and time due to globalisation has faced a great defeat and the concept of global village has been eroded suddenly,” thinks Rath.
However, psychologist Basant Das, well versed with the different facets of human behaviour, says, “During counselling sessions, he advised those parents complaining against the apathy of children or other related issues, that they must live a life with dignity. And they shouldn’t hold on to the early idea that their children would look after them forever.”
“Instead of being liabilities on their children, the parents should take care of themselves and try to be an asset for the children,” Das, says adding. “The children are also grappling with a lot a stress in their professional life.”
A lonely father residing in Bhubaneswar’s Nayapalli area says, “The children know parents are silent sufferers… wouldn’t complain and so can easily be dispensed with.”
Experts say due to factors like a fiercely a competitive life, professional stress, fast lifestyle, changing attitude, ambition to climb up in career, strive for materialistic comfort and peer pressures, children lack the time and energy and so are unwilling to shoulder more responsibility (of parents).
However, Rath believes, today, there is still some amount of consciousness among the children about their parents. “We are about to step into a more individualistic world governed by the ‘let alone and leave alone’ principle,” she says.
According to Rath, till the end of 1980’s, it’s believed that the nearer was the child the dearer he became to the parents. Today, it’s different. “Each parent is enveloped with sky touching aspirations. In our pursuit to pitch the child in the global market from school days, not only we put tremendous stress on the young minds, alienate them from family culture but in the process kill the value system,” Rath explains.
Also, for most parents, a cosy job for the child in a global entity with a fat pay package, ensures them a better stock value in the social stock market or among peer groups.
According to a 2019 Helpage India study, Elder Abuse in India- Role of Family in Care giving – challenges & responses – conducted across 20 Indian cities, 29% care givers in the family (mainly son, daughter-in-law, daughter, son-in-law) felt the ‘burden of care giving of an elder’ was moderate to severe, for 15% it was severe. And 35% though ‘never’ felt happy looking after the elderly.
Perhaps that’s created a space and also market for old age care providers. In Bhubaneswar alone there are at least over a dozen agencies offering home nursing facility. Like Orange cross, a professionally run, start-up.
“There’s a growing demand for this kind of service in Bhubaneswar and other cities,” agrees Ajay Bhanja, CEO, Orange Cross. Bhanja an IIT (ISM Dhanbad) alumnus with an advanced management course from Kellogg School of Management, Chicago, has entered the sector, after a 25-year stint at the global corporate arena. Besides transforming Orange Cross into a 360 degree chronic care provider for the elderly people, Bhanja intends to branch out the service to some other cities in the country. The potential of the market is easily understandable.
However, Covid-19 has brought some positive changes too. As Rath says, “Job loss and income loss has brought a ‘home reversal mood to many children’ staying away from parents. The lockdowns also helped create a new bondage as elderly parents have got their home confined children to play games (chess and ludo) with them, through digital connections, though.
Perhaps it’s Covid’s way of maintaining a balance.
(A few names have been changed as requested)
Debi Mohanty