Old age homes need of now and future too: Ex-Union minister Prabhu

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Technological advancements in health sciences have increased life expectancy, and this has fuelled the need for more old age homes for providing care and companionship to the elderly, former Union minister Suresh Prabhu has said.

Senior citizens have the resources today, but they lack a support system and people around them who can understand their emotions and with whom they can share their feelings in the sunset years, he noted.

The former Union minister was speaking after inaugurating a two-day workshop organised by the NGO Aastha Foundation in Maharashtra’s Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar city on Thursday.

Members of more than 50 old age homes across Maharashtra are attending the workshop, which will end on Friday. In his inaugural speech, Prabhu said, “There is a need for organisations working for elderly people to come together on one platform and learn from one another. When we can share best practices, we should share worst practices also so that they can be analysed and we know what we should not do.”

He emphasised the need to revive the ancient concept of gurukul, where students lived with and learned from their teachers in a residential set-up, and extend this model to the old age homes.

“When there was a need for education, gurukuls started. Now, there is a need for old age homes. An old age home is the need of the hour because life expectancy is increasing as new technologies are coming up. We need medicines, machines, medical devices today, but above all, there is a need for emotional security,” he averred.

“Today, people have the resources, but they don’t have anyone to understand them, meet them. Therefore, old age homes are needed now and in the future too,” the chartered accountant-turned-politician highlighted.

Technologies alone will not resolve the issues faced by the elderly people, and what they need is emotional care and feeling of being connected with someone, Prabhu said.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.