Old and Neglected

By Kakaire Kirunda, Daily Monitor

Uganda

August 20, 2008

“I can spend up to two days without talking to or seeing a person. Radio Maria is now my husband and companion. I fear that when I die, it is only the terrible smell that will alert the community,” says Imelda Nampiima of Mityana, of her situation that is synonymous with many older persons aged 80 and above, according to a newly published study on the elderly persons of Uganda by Mr. Fredrick Nyanzi of the NGO, The Aged Family Uganda (Tafu).

Issues such as poverty, isolation, HIV/Aids, poor nutrition, health and elder abuse are among many others that need urgent policy makers’, international and local NGOs’ attention in planning for the development of older persons.

 
To reach this conclusion, Tafu partnered with Age Concern Devon through the International Federation on Ageing’s (IFA) capacity building programme and conducted a survey to obtain information on the life experiences of older persons in Uganda.

The survey that consulted 382 older persons across the country was aimed at increasing awareness of their needs and providing a platform to advocate urgent intervention. “It is high time all stakeholders in the field of ageing came up with solutions for the problems affecting the older persons of Uganda and to plan for the ageing of the population,” says the study, which also shows that there are over a million older persons in Uganda, many of whom lack food, money, clean water and medical support and have lost their children to war and HIV/Aids.

The situation in which older persons find themselves is compounded by several factors as stipulated in the findings of the study. 

Among the findings is that the Aids pandemic has left many orphaned children, placing the burden of raising them to older persons, especially grandmothers.

“In Uganda, 50 per cent of the orphaned children are staying with their grandparents. Grandparents invested in their children, expecting assistance in old age but as a result of the HIV/Aids pandemic, their sons and daughters have died before them,” according to the report. 

Similarly, older persons are living in poor hygiene standards. And as a result of isolation, neglect and lack of support services, older persons are infested with lice, jiggers, flies, bed bugs and suffer diarrhoea due to lack of clean water and assistance with personal care. 

According to the study author, neglected older persons are sometimes characterised by smell. “A school child commented that ‘a corpse smelt like the clothes of an older woman,’” he wrote. 

As remedial measures, the study proposes 12 interventions among which is putting in place and implementing the government policy for older persons, including older persons in the planning, designing and implementation of development programmes that impact on them, and strengthening older organisations for better capacity building and advocacy.

There is also need to lobby international organisations and the government to introduce specific programmes to support the older persons and their orphaned grandchildren, just as it is important to introduce HIV/Aids education and testing programmes for older persons since some are carriers and/or sexually active.

Other measures include setting up income protection schemes such as the National Social Security Fund, social pension, cash transfers and credit facilities to older persons. The study also calls for the establishment of a national council on ageing.

Copyright © Global Action on Aging
Terms of Use  |  Privacy Policy  |  Contact Us