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Without domestic helps, senior citizens in Pune struggle to manage homes as housing societies follow safety rules
Housing societies have been cautious on allowing domestic helps to resume duties over coronavirus spread fears.
Pune Since the unlock 1.0 has started in Pune city, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has given several relaxations to the citizens. One of them is allowing domestic helps to come to work at home, specially for the senior citizens in the city. Still there are large number of elderly people who are not able to get the help from their domestic helps due to various reasons like domestic helps are coming from containment zones, housing societies not allowing or making stringent rules for them. HT spoke to some of the elderly couples around the city who are struggling without domestic helps in day to day life.
Manohar Chobhe (83) and Suniti Chobhe (77) resident of Subhashnagar area, Tilak road
“We both are living alone here in our house and after the lockdown started one by one all our domestic helps stopped coming for work. We had three domestic helps for different works in the house, as we both are not able to do anything on our own. But as they didn’t come, both of us divided the work between both of us and somehow managing to do the work. I have back pain and spondylosis problem, so cooking, cleaning utensils and washing clothes was very painful for me,” said Suniti Chobhe.
While Manohar Chobhe said, “More than physical pain we both are going through mental pain allot during this crisis situation. Both our son and daughter are living in other states due to their work and cannot come here to help us. There were positive cases found in our area, so domestic helps or any other people were banned to come here. We are just hoping that this lockdown ends soon and maids come back for work taking all safety precautions.”
Satish Rajaram Jadhav (65) and Sarita Satish Jadhav (61) resident of Ganesh Complex housing society, Bibwewadi area
Sharing their experience without the domestic help, Satish Jadhav said, “In the month of February I had a minor operation of stomach and since then I am not able to move easily. After the lockdown one domestic help which we had in the house stopped coming to work. This ultimately brought workload on my wife and also on me, so she used to do all cooking part and other household work. I would help her in sweeping and small cleaning work. But as my stomach used to pain allot, I would not do much work.”
Sarita Jadhav said, “Initially it was going fine with us, but after few days it started taking toll on both of us. We would get exhausted by doing household things, so we started let go some of the works. For outside work like getting grocery items, milk and other things we have now contacted the shop owners and their person drops the things to our doorstep.”
Charminkumar Oza (67) and Prafullaben Oza (66) resident of Shukratara Society, Shukrawar peth
“We are living with our son and had two domestic helps coming earlier for work, also there was a woman caretaker which used to come to stay with my wife during the day time. My wife has medical conditions and is undergoing treatment from few months now, she needs a walker to walk and so all the household work we were dependent on domestic helps . But due to the lockdown everything stopped suddenly and we were left with option to work on our own. So I daily do the cleaning and other small parts of daily work in the house, even our son helps sometimes but as he works in IT field he has his own priorities,” said Charminkumar Oza.
“Apart from that for getting groceries and vegetables from outside I only go to the nearby shops. It certainly affects our health allot and keeping the energy in such situation is more important. If the domestic helps come back soon it will be a great relief for us.” he added.
Housing societies talking about the issue
“There actually is no ambiguity about the government notifications. The trepidation caused by corona, resulted in some MCs misinterpreting these directions either because of majority opinion or their personal prejudices resulting in banning domestic helps or making their employment near impossible by imposing various internal conditions. Pune’s middle and higher classes cannot do without domestic helps beyond a point for various reasons and compulsions of the city life. While townships and large complexes, overwhelmed by the daunting task of domestic helps verification, safety measures are at times in a fix but to contravene the government directions and cause inconvenience to needy residents, especially the seniors, is not correct.” said Dhairyashil Vandekar who is the resident and administrator of Fragrancia Society in Koregaon Park area.
“Domestic helps were also banned by us till such time the government permitted them to work. We ensure strict compliance of all laid down government instructions with regard to their engagements. They are regularly apprised of the situation and consequences in case of an eventuality to ensure they do not compromise on the precautionary measures. A routine check on their family activities, cautioning and counselling on the do’s and don’ts is also done. While use of all types of devices for health check are useful it is always more safe in having an informed and aware domestic help,” he added.
While Satosh Sabnis, chairman of the Suyog Nagar housing society located off Senapati Bapat road said, “After the lockdown was started we stopped domestic helps from coming to our society, but then there was demand from some of the senior citizens that they actually are in need of the domestic helps. So we made a list of residents in our society who are in need of domestic helps, then we also took details of each and every domestic help coming to our society. We got a list of containment zones from the police department and then we came to know that 90 per cent of domestic helps coming to our society were coming from the containment zones. Accordingly only 4 to 5 domestic helps were allowed to come for work that too with all the safety precautions, as residents also want help from domestic helps but not by compromising safety of their own and other residents in the society.”
Doctors say
Dr Prakash Rokade, medical officer at Aundh Civil Hospital said, “The main thing is to follow all the guidelines given by the government about taking safety precautions. Domestic helps are allowed to come for work to the housing societies but there are several rules and regulations given for that. If the domestic help is coming from the containment zone then she is not allowed, others can come but with having face mask, proper cleanliness, using hand sanitizers, not roaming around the society premises without any reason and other majors. We all should first remove fear about the disease, but at the same time needs to be alert and aware about taking precautions.”
