While the Sindh Assembly's Senior Citizen Bill is admirable, it appears as if our legislators referred to some foreign country's version what are the needs of senior citizens. The bill's version of elderly is the standardized view point. It is assumed all our problems and issues are either related to financial constrains or deteriorating health, and that these can be assuaged by facilities and concessionsthat will be available to the elderly through the senior citizenship card. Is such a card necessary? Everyone has an ID-Card which indicates how old the card holder is.
Senior citizens living in cities, especially Karachi, and the small towns and villages in the province are very different from each other in their financial constrains and even health issues. The contemporary senior citizen of Karachi has a very different attitude to life compared to other elderly in other places, even other cities, of the province.
For one thing, the majority are from the middle-class or, as some say, the "salaried class" who are now retired and live on pension or savings in Behbut accounts. You will be surprised to learn hardly any of them have insurance cover because in their young days they just managed to make ends meet and had little left over to buy an insurance policy. Some who did buy one ended up not paying the monthly installment and the policy lapsed. End of story.
Another thing is that Karachi's elderly, because they had earned their living, have a sense of personal independence. This does not change in old age. The Karachiite does not think his children have to support him or her. They prefer to lead and independent life, with their spouse, and if he or she is dead, alone.
In the upper middle-class a person usually has a apartment or a bungalow purchasedwhen the income was good. As they are usually unable to manage their homes (both financially and physically) end up selling the property for a smaller, manageable apartment, preferable in a commercial area with shops nearby. That is not bad at all, I know from personal experience. What is bad is that they have to pay the same high property tax and charges on water, gas and electricity as anybody else. The Senior Citizen Bill does not this financial issues. The senior citizenship card will give the elderly concessions on travel fare and medical aid, but what about these recurring strain on their reduced financial position?
An elderly Karachiite may need a care provider. Their children are willing to pay for nurse or ayah to look after their parents, but if a person does not have children or children who does not earn high salaries and thus have not enough money to pay the high wages of care providers? The Senior Citizen Bill does not envision facilities like community care service providers who are paid by the government to take care of the elderly. Another problem for city-dwelling senior citizens is the daily meal. Who is to cook it? Who will buy the ingredients? And again, what can one afford on reduced income? This is actually a worldwide problem of elderly living in cities.
They not only may need nursing care but also someone to cook their daily meal- for free. Otherwise they tend to live on such things as junk foods especially three-minute noodles which have little nutritional value but are easily prepared. In the UK you have social workers who prepare hot meals for senior citizens at a token price. But even this is available only in few leading cities like London.
It is, therefore, not surprising that independent city elders eat less and many of their health problems stem from poor nutrition, leading to weight loss. Their attitude is not different from young girls and women who deliberately eat less to lose weight and suffer from the disorder called anorexia nervosa. The young females do it to look fashionably thin; the elderly don't want to tell the whole world they eat less: they don't want pity.
The loss of dignity is a big issue with the elderly city folk. After retirement they feel like they have become irrelevant. They miss their career routine, they feel their life is meaningless. This is a problem typical of the urban old people. They have experience which can be used but no such concept was included in the Senior Citizen Bill. I recently saw a film "Experience never gets old" starring Robert De Niro as a 70-year old widower Ben Whittaker who is retired and misses his nine-to-five job. An online fashion site advertises for senior workers. It is a clerical job much below his old job as CEO of a telephone directory firm. The pay as an intern computer operator is nothing worth or worthy of him. But he is happy and his life is back on track. Our old people too can do something. May be all firms should employ retirees; their experience counts.
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