Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

The Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices is work­ing with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) on cas­es of el­der abuse at pri­vate res­i­dences and homes for the aged.

The min­istry is al­so work­ing to as­sume full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for homes for the el­der­ly, Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox said dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion to the bud­get de­bate in the Sen­ate on Mon­day.

Cox told the Up­per House that ac­counts of abuse against the el­der­ly are far from iso­lat­ed as there had been “182 re­port­ed cas­es of el­der abuse in pri­vate res­i­dences and 34 in homes for old­er per­sons so far for the year”. She said fig­ures from the pre­vi­ous year sug­gest­ed that the in­stances of re­port­ed abuse were high­er.

“A to­tal of 260 cas­es were re­port­ed in fis­cal 2022. In 2022 there were 37 cas­es re­port­ed in homes for old­er per­sons, a de­crease of three per­sons. The alarm­ing fig­ures sug­gests that in the last two years over 500 el­der­ly peo­ple, whose care would have been have en­trust­ed to peo­ple at sup­posed havens of care, have suf­fered mis­treat­ment,” she said.

Cox said stricter safe­guard­ing mech­a­nisms are be­ing en­forced and the min­istry is in­creas­ing its col­lab­o­ra­tion with the TTPS to en­sure that re­port­ed in­ci­dents of el­der abuse are thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

In ad­di­tion, the min­istry is re­view­ing the leg­is­la­tion with a view to tak­ing full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for old­er per­sons homes and their le­gal team has had dis­cus­sions with the Min­istry of Health on the mat­ter.

“We have re­ceived feed­back from the Min­istry of Health with re­gards to the min­istry’s pro­posed amend­ments to the act. The rec­om­men­da­tions have been con­sid­ered with a view with in­cor­po­rat­ing them in­to the re­vised leg­is­la­tion,” she said.

Not­ing the re­sump­tion of se­nior ac­tiv­i­ty cen­tre pro­grammes, Cox added, “Specif­i­cal­ly, the se­nior ac­tiv­i­ty cen­tres fa­cil­i­tate in­ter­ac­tion through ed­u­ca­tion­al and recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ties, ex­er­cise, out­ings and so­cial events. The cen­tres al­low per­sons to en­gage in sev­er­al in­ter­ests, such as cook­ing, gar­den­ing, men­tor­ship, phys­i­cal ex­er­cise and craft. We be­lieve every per­son de­serves to age well, with self-worth, dig­ni­ty, and pur­pose.”  

She said for fis­cal 2024 they will con­tin­ue ef­forts to aid vul­ner­a­ble groups. $5.6 bil­lion was spent on var­i­ous grants and ser­vices as of last month and close to $45 bil­lion was spent on so­cial grants for the poor and vul­ner­a­ble over the last eight years.

Cox said, “As at Sep­tem­ber 2023, there were 16,269 in­di­vid­u­als in re­ceipt of the pub­lic as­sis­tance grant of which 2,410 were new ben­e­fi­cia­ries. The to­tal ex­pen­di­ture for this grant to date is $324,602,81.” 

Cox said there were 17,235 house­holds and clients re­ceiv­ing food sup­port and the to­tal ex­pen­di­ture on those grants was ap­prox­i­mate­ly $132,679,420 as of Sep­tem­ber 2023.