This weekend it was the turn of residents of the Cape Winelands District to give their inputs during public hearings on the Older Persons Amendment Bill.
The Committee on Social Development started the Western Cape leg of the public hearings on Friday in Saldanha Bay on the West Coast. On Saturday, the committee held public hearings at the Paarl Town Hall.
Acting committee chair, Mr Dikgang Stock, told residents that the aim of these public hearings is to solicit the concerns and views of senior citizens and other members of the public on how the bill can help alleviate their plight, improve their lives, and protect their rights.
Mr Stock told residents that the bill is aimed at amending the parts of the Older Persons Act of 2006 that inadvertently render the protection, safety, and health care of older person at their homes or centres of care untenable. These amendments seek to, among others, strengthen the protection and prevention of abuse of older persons; eliminate harmful traditional practices including witchcraft accusations against older persons; and recognise the responsibilities of older persons in passing on inter-generational knowledge and wisdom. The bill also provides for the removal of older persons to temporary safe care without a court order.
On Saturday, residents again highlighted the scarcity of old age homes for the elderly, especially those depending on government grants. This issue was also raised the day before during public hearings on the West Coast.
The committee heard that older persons in Mbekweni Township in Paarl who are too old to move around or who live with disabilities are often deprived of access to critical services. They said often in Paarl these services are far away from where they live. They said they would be happy if the Department of Social Development could have its people go door to door to compile a database of their needs and concerns.
The residents said the Department of Social Development should be part of these public hearings because “we have long raised the problem regarding the lack of residential facilities for older persons in our district”. Most facilities for older people in our district, some residents said, are expensive and are not financially accessible to older persons who depend on government grants.
Underscoring the significance of a database for older persons’ needs and grievances of abuse, one resident – Ms Christine Victor – told the committee about a wheelchair-bound grandmother whose pension is misused by her grandson. Ms Victor said they reported the matter to the social worker but was told to report this matter to the police. She said she did, but this matter has not yet been resolved. Ms Victor said this happened because there is no responsive mechanisms and database meant to track and monitor the implementation of the needs and grievances of older persons.
Ms Karen Borochowitz, founder of the non-profit organisation Dementia South Africa, supported the bill and stressed that there should be an up-to-date database on older persons’ needs and grievances in every district municipality for the department to know how many older people live with disabilities and dementia and what professional services can be provided to them and how.
She further decried the lack of a clear definition of what constitutes statutory abuse of older persons in the bill. She claimed that when older persons are deprived of necessary services such as the recent delay in grant payments by SASSA, there is no consequence management that match this transgression. This was a statutory abuse, but there’s no provision of such statutory transgressions in the bill, she said.
She further claimed that older persons continue to be abused because there is often no conviction of perpetrators of such acts.
A representative from Lingelihle Old Age Home in Ashton, Mr Lucas Klaas, suggested that the bill should consider making a provision that will provide for prescribed criteria of who should form part of the governance structures of older persons institutions.
He said he was making this proposal because in most cases older persons are not abused by caregivers, but boards of governance that oversee these institutions. Sadly, he said, there are no oversight mechanisms to monitor how they manage and dispense their responsibilities and how they can be held accountable for their transgressions.
He also suggested that the bill should consider ways of dealing with the eviction of older persons living on farms. Sadly, the bill is silent on this matter. This matter which calls for an intergovernmental response to this social injustice has, unfortunately, remained unattended.
By Abel Mputing
12 November 2022
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