WHILE the idea of abandoning one’s elderly parents at hospitals sounds preposterous to some, such is the devastating reality these days as it was recently revealed that more than 2,000 senior citizens were abandoned at hospitals nationwide from 2018 to 2022.
In disclosing these figures in a parliamentary written reply last week, Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Rina Harun said of the 2,144 neglected senior citizens, 914 – 656 men and 258 women – were successfully returned to their family members.
She noted that medical social workers at hospitals would track down their next of kin, and if unsuccessful they will help arrange for placements (for the senior citizens) in either government or private welfare institutions.
Rina was responding to a question by Cheras MP Tan Kok Wai who asked the ministry to state the total amount of senior citizens abandoned at public and private hospitals in the last five years according to gender, reasons for abandonment and their new placements.
She clarified that social workers would normally trace the senior citizens’ next of kin by checking their identification cards, contacting the families, doing house visits or tracing them through the National Registration Department’s system.
Among the reasons given were family problems and lack of guardians, while some children even denied knowledge of the senior citizens referred to them.
To address the issue, Rina also said the Government had drafted the Senior Citizens Bill, which she said would help protect the rights of senior citizens. The draft of the bill is still being examined by the relevant stakeholders.
Speaking to New Sunday Times on this issue, Alliance for Safe Community chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye recently expressed sadness about the lack of filial piety, adding that some children of these abandoned senior citizens do not know how to deal with family issues.
“They should seek counselling from the Welfare Department instead of leaving their parents in hospitals,” he told the daily.
“It is sad to read that their children give false contact numbers to avoid caring for their parents, who raised them and provided them with education, only to be neglected at an advanced age. This is unacceptable.”
Meanwhile, the Malaysia Healthy Ageing Society (MHAS) reckoned that the Ministry via the Social Welfare Department needs to closely examine the definition of “abandoned elderly” as the reasons are multifactorial and many may not have been truly abandoned.
In this case, illnesses such as dementia; psychiatric conditions; socioeconomic factors such as financial difficulties or a stressed and overburdened caregivers might pose special challenges for families to care for the elderlies.
“The efforts to identify caregivers or families of those who are vulnerable need to be accompanied by non-punitive supportive measures to assist caregivers in their support of their loved ones such as social support, education and caregiver training,” opined MHAS president Prof Dr Shahrul Bahyah Kamaruzzaman.
“Similarly, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), hospitals and community stakeholders can play a major role in these supportive efforts.” – July 27, 2022
