ELDERLY abuse is a notable problem across the world as the ageing population increases, and South Africa is no exception.
The abuse of the elderly ranges across a wide spectrum of issues to involve their financial, physical, and emotional statuses.
“Abandonment is also a big area in which the country has not managed to intervene,” social worker Simphiwe Sakela said.
She said the rapid relocation of the younger and more economically fluid generation to towns and cities has mainly been to blame for the neglect that the population of older people face in a country where making a living has become a mainstay and where everyone is pressured to work towards accumulating material wealth.
This has led to elderly people being left to fend for themselves on the peripheries of society. “You must understand that we as black people do not subscribe to leaving our elderly in homes where one is taken care of and lives among a community of their peers.
“There still remains a generation of people who grew up on the land, to whom moving to shared quarters is foreign, and who will not abandon the land on which their forefathers lived and where their ancestor are buried,” Sakela said.
This means they are left alone to fend for themselves, even as they get old and frail. “Not to mention those that become sickly and unable to perform even the smallest of tasks like cooking, cleaning, and getting their own food and taking medication,” Sakela said.
Tafta - an organisation which encourages that people be allowed to age actively - said there was a shameful truth about elder abuse. “The worse thing about it is not that it happens, but that it is easy to get away with. Someone can punch, slap or kick and elder person ... steal from them, deprive them of food, water or medication, shout at them or mock them, or leave them sitting in the toilet for hours ... and more often than not they will tell no one,” Tafta said.
And this is because they are afraid.
They said older people became more vulnerable as they aged. “Often the abuser is a family member - a child or a grandchild - on whom they are completely dependent. To complain is to risk further abuse and isolation, preventing communication with people who might help.”
So it was hardly surprising that there were no hard statistics available, and this, the organisation said, was despite the fact that people - family members included - knew about it. “And so it is only getting worse.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) said earlier this year that at least one in six people aged 60 and above had experienced some form of abuse within the past year. “Abuse of older people can lead to serious physical injuries and long term psychological consequences,” it said, adding that the abuse was both in established homes entrusted to care for them in their golden years and at home and communities where they were among people who loved them.
“The global population of people aged 60 years and older will more than double from 9 00 million to about 2 billion in 2050,” the world body said, as it described their abuse as a lack of appropriate action occurring within any relationship where there was an expectation of trust, which caused hardship or distress to an elderly person.
These and other organisations spoke as the country last week reeled from viral footage of a teenager filmed beating his grandmother in her home in the Western Cape, and where the old woman asks her grandson Luvo if his intention was to kill her, as she rose from her knees after he slapped her and continued to wag his fingers at her.
The reaction to this from society was overwhelming, with individuals and organisation making their way to the hospital to which the old woman had been admitted, apparently after the month-old incident, and after which the school-going child was arrested.
The Commission for Gender Equality said it would immediately initiate an investigation into this and other incidents, while Social Development Minister Sisisi Tolashe said she was shocked and instructed officials to investigate the matter and intervene.
Communities from the area in question and beyond asked that the young man be released into their hands so they could teach him a lesson, while others questioned the young man’s parents and the community around the family home, who they said obviously knew of the abuse.
Research conducted by the University of Cape Town last year found that at least one in 10 older people suffered abuse. The report produced said: “We know that elder abuse is a global, public health and human rights concern. It is often hidden by the perpetrator and the older person themselves.”
It was a global phenomenon, of which only 4% of cases were actually reported, the report said. Of higher risk were elderly people with dementia and other mental issues, and, the research found, South Africa lacked the services and mental health professionals to adequately support carers and the aged.
“There are no surveillance and monitoring systems, or support and protective structures and services to deal with and address elder abuse.”
It was a serious problem, made worse by the lack of data on the needs gaps. Evidence to inform responses and priority setting is not in place, and work on the issue needs to start immediately and made high priority, the report recommended.
Sakela said if and when systems had been put in place, they had to find old people being abused for their grant money and pensions, their homes and even livestock and field; for requiring too much of carers, for a lack of understanding of their frail minds and bodies.
“Younger generations - in both rural and urban settings - also leave their children in the care of their parents and grandparents, turning their backs on them and sending nothing to a generation which must then raise, feed, clothe and send to school children they have either no strength or finances for.
“Never mind sick and dying elders who can lie in bed in pools of their own waste until a neighbour or state carer comes by, some left in the hands of children who get overwhelmed with the responsibility or do not care to carry the responsibility ... the problem is wide, it is deep, it is a hidden epidemic that as a country we should be ashamed of,” she said.
The researchers at UCT added that elder abuse and abandonment were often left in the hands of volunteers or kind neighbours when they were affected within communities, and in old-age homes a stringent surveillance and monitoring system had to be put in place to ensure that it was not only about removing them from public scrutiny, only to suffer at the hands of those who benefitted from being paid for it.