International Day of Older Persons: A life lived, an existence forgotten

With poverty on the rise, more and more families are opting to leave the elderly in old age homes.

KARACHI:

Sitting in the veranda of the two-storey building, 86-year-old Cybil Sethna* can only think of one thing during the summer – peaches. The fruit is so readily available in this overcrowded area that lies in the heart of Saddar, yet so far from the reach of the old age home where Cybil has been a resident for over 15 years.

Like Cybil, a state level tennis player in the 1930s, around 60 other residents live by themselves – left there by families unable, or unwilling, to care for them. There are many other homes such as this in Karachi, and new ones are springing up every year.

Irrevocable circumstances

According to Anwar Kazmi, a spokesperson for the Edhi shelter home, one of Pakistan’s biggest charitable organisations, the country sees approximately a 20% increase in the number of people being admitted into old age homes annually.

“In 2006, the number of these homes stood at three in Karachi. By 2012, it had sharply jumped to 12. This excludes the community-based old age homes,” elucidates Kazmi, adding that the increase may be a result of growing poverty, which has also steeply inclined during the past few years.

This, however, was not the case with Cybil. She is financially well supported by her grandson, and her shift to the residential facility was a consequence of her daughter, Tina*, being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. With her grandchildren too busy in their own lives, she was left with one option – to find a new place where she felt wanted.

Luckily, hailing from a closely knit community, her family did not have to make great efforts in finding a home where Cybil would be with people her own age, but also provided with medical care.

Apart from paying a fixed amount of money to the old age home to accommodate Cybil, her grandson also gives her pocket money. This luxury, however, is not available to most of the people living in old age homes. With poverty cited as one of the major reasons for abandoning parents, children often find it rather easier to leave them in old age homes than take care of their medical expenditures. In turn, these facilities turn towards donations to meet the daily expenses.

A lonely life

As Kazmi goes through official records, he notes sadly that of the 1,500 senior citizens living in Edhi’s four shelter homes in Karachi, only 30 are regularly visited by their families.

Unfortunately, Cybil is no exception to this. Over the course of her stay, the visits of family members have ceased.

Cybil, despite her age, is in good health and walks around the premises unaided as she narrates her tale in a strong voice. She remembers a lot: the glaring opposition when she married outside her community, her inability to have a son, her daughter’s illness, and her stabbing loneliness.

And yet, she knows that this is her life, these are the memories she has to live with, till the end. After all, rarely anyone from old age homes makes it back to his or her family – alive, that is.

“I don’t have a family,” she says.

Then, she immediately corrects herself: “It’s wrong to say that I don’t have a family. Let’s just say that I once did.

*Names have been changed to protect identity

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2013.