How does Bengaluru treat its elderly?

At least 2,000 elderly of Bengaluru face homelessness and abandonment by their families after retirement and seek shelters or resort to begging.

The economically deprived elderly of Bengaluru face neglect, abuse and abandonment by their families and need old age housing and care. A report from February said demand for senior citizens housing has risen amid the COVID-19 pandemic and is likely to grow in the coming years.

Many elderly of Bengaluru face homelessness and abandonment by immediate family. (iStock/HT File)

According to a 2021 study, the Elders Helpline, which is a first of its kind in India that offers services for the welfare of the older people in Bangalore city, registered 1400 complaint calls regarding abuse from the older adults in Bangalore from April 2009 to March 2020.

An NGO, called Nightingales Medical Trust, provides dementia care and jobs for the elderly in India. “Mostly abandoned due to old age, physical or mental ailments, the elderly are forced to beg on the streets and live an undeserving life of humiliation and indignity,” they said.

There are various private old age homes across Bengaluru, but only five of them are government aided/funded. Senior citizens living in poverty face abandonment by their own families as they cannot earn an income.

A 2019 report by HelpAge India organization, titled ‘Home Care for the Elderly: A Call to Action’ says, nearly 3 million elderly are deprived and 93% of them belong to unorganized sector with no post-retirement benefits or pensions.

Another survey by HelpAge observed that of 218 elderly respondents in Bengaluru, one-fourth of them were abused at home. Around 73% of them said they had faced disrespect, 52% of them had faced neglect, and some had even experienced verbal, physical or economic abuse.

A 70-year old woman, a resident of Bengaluru said she was asked to leave her in-laws house after her husband’s death. After spending much of her savings to find a home for herself, she lived alone till 2017 until her relatives found her and took her in.

“I did not have a stable home. I had to change places eight times in the span of a few years because I had no money or family, and security was an issue,” she said.