Jawad Janjua
Regardless of where one stands on the inception of old age homes, it cannot be denied that the way they are being run by the administration shows the neglect the residents feel, first from their children and then from the state that should have taken care of them. The presence of these institutes should have shown that society does care about its members and provides them with an option, a safe shelter where they can interact with other individuals and spend the rest of their lives in peace, but upon close inspection of these institutions, one becomes aware of the fact that these institutes represent the morally-bankrupt society that we live in. Visiting these institutes can be a headache on its own with the government-run institutes requiring long and tiresome paperwork to let you interact with the residents, to begin with. One can shrug all of it off thinking that these nstitutes have a protocol and they are following these protocols, but when new protocols are placed in front of you after completing the previous protocols, it all seems like a stunt to tire you out. The number of old age homes has increased exponentially over the years and visiting a private institute for the sake of visiting and corresponding with the resident shouldn’t be that difficult of a task. The private institutes are also playing by a similar playbook. Scheduling a visit with them can be a tiresome procedure because many of the old age homes have given contact numbers that are not theirs or when these numbers are contacted, the receiver on the other end is somebody else who has nothing to do with these institutes. Further, these private institutes put forward a list of things that are essential to bringing along on the day of the visit. These items, while contacting a local old age home, were bedsheets, eating utensils, new crockery, and blinds for the old age home. The old age homes are kind in a way that they did present an alternative to those who cannot afford to bring the items on their list. These individuals are told to bring food, which upon examining the request seems to be more for the audience than for the residents of that old age home. “The management treats us worse than the people who left us here. The donations that do come in, though limited in nature, are taken by the management for their personal use. A similar thing happened in Ramadan and we had nothing to open our fasts with,” narrates a resident of a local old age home who wished to remain anonymous for their safety. The management of these old-age homes is what makes the lives of these residents worse. From the point of view of the management, these people who have been given the task of running these institutions are understaffed and underpaid for the efforts that are expected from them. This results in the staff not giving the residents the attention they deserve and creates a hostile situation for the people who have no place else to go. A regulatory body for the private institutions needs to be set up to prevent these incidents from happening. And as far as the government institutions are concerned, the employees should be hired according to the number of residents and these should be skilled to complete the tasks that are expected of them. It is through immediate reforms that these institutions can move towards being beneficial for the people who have no place to go and for those who require urgent care.
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