Our elders deserve better treatment

THE EDITOR: Please permit me a space in your popular newspaper to bring to attention, the difficulties experienced by the senior citizens who visit the Freeport Health Centre on a daily basis. My grandmother and our elderly neighbours, who visit the health centre in order to obtain their medication and have their blood tested have to wait long periods in the sweltering sun until the gate opens.

Some arrive from as early as half past five in the morning to get an early number in line, but to their bitter disappointment, upon entering the cool air-conditioned atmosphere, those who had arrived late, are given the early numbers while the early comers are handed numbers in the twenties and thirties. Secondly, I would like to express my total abhorrence of the lackadaisical frame of mind the doctors display. On numerous occasions, residents of Freeport, Carapichaima and surrounding environs have been plagued by the insensitive attitude shown to them by the nurses and doctors at the Freeport Health Centre. Despite profuse complaints, via letters, from the patients who attend this health facility about the rudeness directed towards them, the authorities have turned a blind eye on the prevailing situation. The doctors always arrive late, and when they do this, the elderly people are forced into deciding whether to sit patiently on the chairs, some of which are back breaking, or to go home and return later in order to get their medication which they urgently need. Shouldn’t these elderly persons in our society reap the rewards they have sowed?

Haven’t they suffered from hardships worse than yours or mine, in order to make Trinidad and Tobago a better place for the upcoming generation? To those doctors and nurses, especially the doctors, the answer to these questions is NO! No, because as the saying goes, “Actions speak louder than words,” and the careless attitude displayed by the doctors to these simple human beings, can clearly show what are their feelings towards these senior citizens. These doctors have their own private practice, and in their opinion, if they arrive at the health centre tardy, at least they have made an appearance rather than not coming at all, and that, the elderly people should be grateful to them. The Health Ministry should look into this matter forthwith, because the people you consider to be your elders and deserve utmost respect in society are being gravely mistreated and neglected instead of being cared for lovingly and patiently by the community.

DAVI  RAMKALLAWAN
Bank Village
Carapichaima