Caring for the elderly in rural communities

A neglected aspect of health and development initiatives in rural areas is that the needs of elderly people, particularly those from weaker sections, do not get adequate attention.

- BHARAT DOGRA

The problems of elderly people can be severer in areas where dependence on migrant work is high and younger members of a family must be away for considerable periods of time.

Dr. Sharad Iyengar, who leads a programme called Prabal Yatra (PY) for improved health and wellness care for elderly people in about 100 villages of south Rajasthan says that their experiences so far have confirmed the urgent need for such interventions to specially help the elderly people from weaker sections in remote villages.

Gaya Prasad Gopal, an elderly and respected social activist from Chitrakut district of Uttar Pradesh has been closely observing the changes in rural poor households. He says that sometimes due to compulsion and sometimes due to neglect, increasingly there is a tendency on the part of younger members to not fulfill their responsibilities towards elders in their families satisfactorily.

In such conditions, government policies need to give more attention to meeting the needs of older people in rural areas. For evolving the most appropriate policies it is important to collect information on priority needs and the wider social conditions in which these needs can be met based on constant interactions with the elderly as well as the wider rural community.