CHALLENGE OF AGING

The Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) in the first ever study on aging and health in Latin America and the Caribbean has pointed out the new health challenge — aging — which has been posed as a result of people in the region living longer and having fewer children. Commendably, PAHO has seen aging as a challenge rather than refer to the rise in life expectancy at birth as a problem. The question of tackling the challenge of aging should be seen by people in the region as needing long term planning, which should include the encouraging of healthy life styles and sensible eating habits from early. In addition, there should be a revamping of the region’s education systems to increasingly focus on skills development and training in modern methods of agriculture to position people to either go into business on their own or to access better paying jobs. With increased incomes, they would be better positioned to invest generally as well as subscribe to medical plans and retirement funds. In turn, there should be programmes in place to assist persons, who are required to take early retirement due to advancing technology eliminating their jobs, or are retrenched because of failure of industries or business houses where they work, to readly access retraining.

Consideration should be given to the establishment of retirement communities for retired persons who can afford this, with provisions for nursing stations, exercise facilities, libraries as well as common rooms where they can play their favourite games such as bridge, or watch television. While many of the country’s and region’s aged feel a sense of abandonment, of being dismissed or literally discarded, this is not altogether true in all of the countries concerned. Barbados, for example, has a care giver programme funded by the government. Aged persons are eligible to benefit under this programme which provides for care givers to come to their homes two or three times a week to see about them at no cost to them. In Trinidad and Tobago, the Government has eased the problems of many of the aged including the granting of free bus passes and increasing old age pensions in the last Budget to $1,000 a month. Today, there are several organisations catering to retirees and/or senior citizens, including the Senior Achievers’ Association of Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidad and Tobago Association of Retired Persons (TTARP) and the Goverment Pensioners’ Association. The Senior Achievers, for example, arranges sessions for its members on managing their assets, the drawing up of wills, finance planning, budgeting.

There have also been lectures on the making up of wills, a seminar on “The Golden Years” — healthy eating and lifestyles and emphasising the need to be always dressed well in public; exercise classes, addresses by medical specialists on osteoporisis, arthritis heart disease. Cruises and vacations to the islands have also been arranged, along with turtle watching, market days, where members sell items produced by them; Carnival parties, and visits to the Asa Wright Centre. But all of this needs to be expanded to allow for more of the elderly to lead more meaningful lives in nations they helped build in years when because wages and salaries were low there was the difficulty in putting aside money for their old age. And when, too, medical plans and retirement funds were largely accessed by upper middle and upper income persons. Much more can be done and needs to be done to make the lives of the region’s elderly more comfortable, but it must begin largely through farsighted planning by individuals during their working years with an assist from Government through perhaps tax incentives.