OUR PARENTS ARE IN OLD AGE HOMES

Parents have no wealth left with them but children have enough wealth with them. Parents have poor health but children have sound health. When these two combinations strike well, normally, parents are shunted out of own home and thrown to distant old age homes. As per available information there are 621 registered old age homes in Kerala as on December 2019. There are 18,008 inmates in these homes. Among them 8,695 are females and 9,313 males. The records show that these fathers and mothers have an average of 6 to 7 children and most of them are well settled. A report by Mathrubhumi reveals that a mother belonging to central region of Kerala who was retired from government service was landed in a old age home through her brother settled in abroad as her son who is very well off refused to take care of her.

Among the total number of old age homes, Ernakulam top the list with 127 centres with over 3,400 inmates, followed by Thrissur with 99 centres accomodating over 2,500 old people. Malappuram is the least with 8 centres.

There can be a wide variety of reasons for the parents to be moved into old age homes. One of those can be the tussle between two women, the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law. They cannot emotionally adjust with each other. Another reason found is that the son is settled at abroad or at a distant place and parents need constant care. Therefore, parents are kept in old age homes. When son does not have sufficient earning to maintain his wife and children parents are sent to old age homes. All said and done, with little adjustments here and there,. these helpless parents can be accommodated in their own homes. Unfortunately, we do not take this issue at the grassroot level by including this information in all important subjects in the school syllabus. Though we have good number of religious organisations here, they too fail to divert their time for finding peace and happiness among the older generation.

While looking at the national level, as per the 2011 census, 8.6% of our population is 60 years plus old, which makes 106 million and at the current rate of growth at 3%, this population may reach 319 million by 2050. In fact total inmates now in old age homes in India could not be traced.

It is the state and central governments, social organisations, religious organisations and above all SCERT who manage the school syllabus may individually put their efforts to ensure that our parents are peacefully left in their own homes during the final days of their lives in this world.

K V George