The Gov­ern­ment's plan to in­tro­duce li­cens­ing, mon­i­tor­ing and ef­fec­tive polic­ing of homes and fa­cil­i­ties pro­vid­ing care for the el­der­ly is a wel­come ini­tia­tive, if long over­due in this coun­try. Ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed by Dr Jen­nifer Rouse, the di­rec­tor of the Di­vi­sion of Age­ing in the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment, there are at least 84 pri­vate homes and full care fa­cil­i­ties pro­vid­ing care for the el­der­ly. But the gov­ern­ment's ini­tia­tive reach­es ro­bust­ly in­to the is­sue of care for the aged, pro­vid­ing con­crete and daunt­ing penal­ties for prov­able cas­es of el­der abuse.

The broad scope of this leg­is­la­tion is pro­vid­ed for un­der the Old­er Per­sons Act, a strate­gic leg­isla­tive doc­u­ment on the aged draft­ed in 2006 and af­ter re­view, now awaits the at­ten­tion of Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards for procla­ma­tion. The el­e­ments of the Act which are sched­uled to be em­pow­ered by Au­gust 2012 are just a part of the rights that are en­shrined in this crit­i­cal piece of leg­is­la­tion which will af­fect an es­ti­mat­ed 156,000 se­nior cit­i­zens over the age of re­tire­ment, a full 12 per cent of the na­tion's pop­u­la­tion. Over the next 50 years, Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Nizam Baksh es­ti­mates, the pop­u­la­tion of the aged is like­ly to dou­ble, a re­sult of im­proved longevi­ty and the pop­u­la­tion pro­file of the pop­u­la­tion.

The Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­istry is it­self in the busi­ness of car­ing for the el­der­ly and has trained 600 care­givers un­der the Geri­atric Ado­les­cent Part­ner­ship Pro­gramme to man­age the needs of se­nior cit­i­zens left un­at­tend­ed or su­per­vised. Faced with grow­ing de­mand for this ser­vice, Min­is­ter Baksh plans to in­crease that num­ber to 1,000 as fast as he can get Cab­i­net ap­proval. The cat­a­logue of el­der abus­es ac­cord­ing to Dr Rouse, is in­tim­i­dat­ing. There are the ob­vi­ous atroc­i­ties of poor care in fa­cil­i­ties meant to look af­ter the aged and in­firm, which in­clude shock­ing re­ports of res­i­dents, whose rel­a­tives are pay­ing for a ser­vice, be­ing fed half-cooked food in­fest­ed with wee­vils and be­ing hosed down in the yard.

And then there are the sur­pris­ing sto­ries of up­scale mem­bers of so­ci­ety be­ing ex­iled to rooms in their own homes or be­ing conned out of their prop­er­ties by their own fam­i­lies. Even more star­tling than these fa­mil­iar, but still dis­turb­ing sto­ries of abuse is an even more ca­su­al phe­nom­e­non of ne­glect; the cav­a­lier dump­ing of the el­der­ly at pub­lic hos­pi­tals so that their rel­a­tives can par­ty and play mas. Ac­cord­ing to Dr Rouse, weeks af­ter Car­ni­val, the el­der­ly rel­a­tives re­main aban­doned at the hos­pi­tal and doc­tors must is­sue a me­dia bul­letin to ask peo­ple to come and col­lect their rel­a­tives. Giv­en this star­tling pro­file of ex­pe­ri­ences, the Di­vi­sion of Age­ing is ab­solute­ly cor­rect to push for en­force­ment of the leg­is­la­tion on el­der­ly care first.

The Act en­ables a fine of $25,000 and im­pris­on­ment for two years for any li­censee, man­ag­er or em­ploy­ee of a home for old­er per­sons who wil­ful­ly as­saults, ill-treats, ne­glects or ex­pos­es the el­der­ly and fails to pro­vide food, care or lodg­ing. Each con­tin­u­a­tion of the of­fence at­tracts an ad­di­tion­al fine of $25,000 per day. The own­ers of homes must al­so own li­a­bil­i­ty in­sur­ance in the sum of $100,000. In­frac­tions or fail­ure to meet the now le­gal re­quire­ments for geri­atric care will at­tract a warn­ing and an op­por­tu­ni­ty to cor­rect any fail­ings in fa­cil­i­ty or care. Fa­cil­i­ties that fail to ad­dress the con­cerns of the Fa­cil­i­ty Re­view Team in 90 days will face clo­sure.

The Di­vi­sion of Age­ing has some in­ter­est­ing ideas about en­gag­ing the el­der­ly as com­mu­ni­ties and as par­tic­i­pants in the wider so­ci­ety, but quite cor­rect­ly, the qual­i­ty of their care must come first. "The leg­is­la­tion will give us the back­bone and teeth for the in­sti­tu­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties, res­i­den­tial homes and the coun­try's eight se­nior cen­tres," Dr Rouse not­ed. Fa­cil­i­ty own­ers will have a tran­si­tion pe­ri­od of a year, and they will be as­sessed ac­cord­ing to a code of con­duct and ethics by 15 field in­spec­tors charged with con­tin­u­ing mon­i­tor­ing of geri­atric care homes. The strat­e­gy is sound, the leg­is­la­tion is pend­ing and the is­sues are clear. All that's need­ed now is the ac­tion that the na­tion's el­ders have been await­ing for far too long.