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The school is already
operational and courses are on, but it will be launched formally after
summer, director of Heritage Hospitals, Dr K R Gangadharan says. By a
conservative estimate, the city will have 1.1 million senior citizens by
2011. As of now, there are about 7.7 million of them in the state.
A proposal for a tie-up
with government hospitals to have a resource group in every hospital to
assist senior citizens is in the final stages with the state government
and will soon be implemented, he said.
The school has courses on
active aging, productive aging, writing wills, forming self-help groups,
networking, financial planning, computer usage, income-tax implication for
senior citizens, seeking government funds, forming cultural groups,
neighbourhood watch programmes and so on. However, it is not just
about catering to physical and financial needs of senior citizens. Most of
them have the money but unhappy family lives. Often, their sternness and
conservative ways attract the dislike of family members and they end up in
ego-fights to an extent that some even end up dragging their family
members to court. But some senior citizens
are now coming forward to work again and many employers are offering
administration and accounts jobs to senior citizens. There is also a
demand for elderly women to work as wardens and to manage nursing homes.
More than the women, men apparently find it difficult to handle aging. "That is because women have high threshold levels, are adaptable and look at productivity in terms of contribution, not in monetary terms like men, who start feeling belittled once there is no monetary return for the work they do," he added. Copyright © 2004
Global Action on Aging |
