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Old
and hapless
IRIN
News
July 02, 2007
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=73040
Zimbabwe's seven-year
economic crisis has made the elderly, who make up 10 percent of
the country's 12 million people, even more vulnerable.
"The situation
for older persons, who, by definition, are people over the age of
60, and because of their mental, physical and poor financial status
are considered vulnerable, is sad, owing to the hyperinflationary
environment that is affecting the country," Priscilla Gavi,
director of Help
Age, a national voluntary organisation promoting the welfare
of the aged, told IRIN.
The decline
is evident in institutions for the elderly, which are mainly funded
by independent donors, but whose contributions were "too little
and a token considering what is required on the ground", Gavi
said.
Most homes have
been hit hard by an annual inflation rate of around 4,000 percent,
and unable to cope with the steep increase in the cost of essential
services such as health, water and electricity.
Daily living
in Zimbabwe has been characterised by widespread shortages of basic
commodities and foreign currency. Since the start of the crisis
in 2000, donors have either scaled down operations, citing a harsh
operating environment, or pulled out.
Unaffordable
cost of living
But even when
donors were willing to help, Gavi said they tended to insist on
income-generating projects for the old, a requirement that "took
a lot of convincing" because the process of drawing up proposals
was long and took time.
Irene Gwindi,
a who has worked since the late 1990s as caregiver at Chinyaradzo,
an old-age home in the populous southwestern suburb of Highfields
in Harare, the capital, recalled the days when looking after the
elderly was easy because funds and donations were never a problem.
"The speed
at which things have deteriorated is unbelievable," Gwindi
told IRIN. "In the winter season, like now, our inmates would
be guaranteed of at least five blankets each from donors, the business
community and other well-wishers, but now we have to struggle to
keep the old people warm because donations are not forthcoming."
Chinyaradzo's
occupants include people abandoned by their families or thrown out
of their houses after ownership wrangles; others were picked up
off the streets and there are even some of foreign origin, with
no known relatives to look after them in Zimbabwe.
Although the
Harare municipality subsidises the city's old age homes by meeting
a percentage of their water and power expenses, the institutions
are struggling to foot their bills.
"Old people's
homes use a lot of water because there is much washing that takes
place, while the consumption of electricity is high, and on many
occasions the authorities have threatened to cut us off due to non-payment,"
said Gwindi.
Elderly
often face higher risks
Water cuts are
frequent, exposing the occupants to greater risk of communicable
diseases, while power cuts often force them to spend cold nights
in the dark. A severe shortage of foreign currency means service
providers cannot maintain or replace the ageing water purification
and distribution equipment, or import enough power from neighbouring
countries.
In the old days
there used to be enough food to guarantee a balanced diet, now the
old people at the home where Gwindi works survive on plain tea and
two slices of bread in the morning, and thick maizemeal porridge
and beans or dried kapenta [dried fish] for lunch and supper.
"That means
they easily fall sick because of poor nutritional standards; worse
still, we have to struggle to meet their medical expenses, considering
the high cost of ensuring treatment for them, that is if there is
any help available at health centres," said Gwindi.
Like all other
sectors, the health-delivery system has been affected by the plummeting
economy: drugs are in short supply in hospitals and clinics, thousands
of doctors and nurses have fled to other countries in search of
better working conditions, strikes are frequent, medication costs
and consultation fees have shot through the roof.
Bumhudzo Old
People's Home, in the dormitory city of Chitungwiza, about 35km
south of Harare, is in a state of disrepair: the roof leaks when
it rains and the broken windows cannot keep the cold winds out.
The institution's
40 residents sleep on dilapidated beds and despite repeated calls
for well-wishers to replace the old furniture, no help has been
forthcoming for the last three years, said a caregiver, who added
that their work had been made more strenuous by the flight of assistants
to other countries in search of better jobs.
"Our wages
are poor because of the poor financial position of the institution
and, as a result, caregivers are shunning the home, choosing instead
to become cross-border traders or migrate to other countries, where
they get better salaries as housemaids or nurse aides," she
said.
It has also
been difficult to obtain wheelchairs for residents who needed them,
and there were often no ambulances available to ferry the sick to
hospital, even in emergency cases, which forced the home to hire
expensive private transporters.
Life
outside the homes
Life can be
even harder for the elderly living outside of institutions. "Older
persons' institutions are limited and only cater for a fraction
of this needy section of the population. Many of them are either
living by themselves or are looked after by relatives, and their
plight is more disturbing in cases where, because of the AIDS pandemic,
they are forced to provide care for children left behind by their
parents," Gavi said.
Most of those
who lived outside institutions would have been informally employed
and therefore had no pensions to fall back on, she said, but even
those who had retired from formal employment barely scraped by because
their pensions were too small.
Maharagwe Munongwa,
70, a retired driver in Harare, received only Z$10,000 (about US0.83
at the parallel market exchange rate of about Z$120,000 to US$1)
as a monthly pension. He never collects it because it would cost
him more than that to fetch it from the payout point.
Last year his
only son, who is divorced, moved to Canada to take up menial jobs,
leaving him to look after three schoolgoing grandchildren, the eldest
of which is 14 years old.
Zimbabwe closed
all legal money transfer agencies last year, so even though his
son regularly remits money to the family via an informal cash-transfer
service, Munongwa is often at the mercy of the agent who runs it.
"Sometimes
we go for two months without receiving anything from that young
man [the agent] who misinforms my son that he is giving us the money.
I am diabetic, and when the money is delayed I suffer a lot, while
my grandchildren sometimes go hungry," he told IRIN.
"While
I appreciate that things are tough in this country, and my son is
toiling to make ends meet abroad, I now burden my children because
I frequently fall ill, while, given my advanced age, I cannot give
them enough attention."
Little
state support
The government's
social welfare fund provides little financial support to the elderly,
disbursing a paltry US$2 annually to each identified beneficiary.
For years Help
Age had advocated the enactment of legislation that would link pensions
to the cost of living, Gavi said. The bill has remained at draft
stage, even though President Robert Mugabe had pledged full support,
but there were fears that it could take a long time to be passed
because the government was now broke.
At Dandaro,
a retirement home for the wealthy elderly in the northern suburb
of Borrowdale, Harare, the picture is very different.
Tim Staunton,
73, a former commercial white farmer, lives a comfortable life,
thanks to money he had saved before his farm was taken over by the
government during the compulsory acquisition of farmland that began
in 2000, in which around 4,000 farmers were displaced to make way
for land-hungry black settlers.
The wheelchair-bound
Staunton owns a garden flat and is looked after by an experienced
nurse, while his children, now living in South Africa and Australia,
send him enough money to ensure his welfare; they visit him at least
twice a year and take him on holiday.
"Things
could have been better had it not been for the economic crisis in
this country," he told IRIN, "but I would not say I am
suffering that much."
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