BENGALURU: From growing medical demands to personal hygiene, several senior citizens in the city are quite often dependant on compassion for their basic needs.
Bothered by incidents of the indifference of many old age homes in the city, Deepa G, 39, who formerly worked in IT companies such as Dell and HP quit her job to start the Punahchetana Foundation in 2015, which caters and tends to elders.
“We are basically into taking care of old people. In addition to it, we carry a lot of charitable activities such as the distribution of clothes and school bags. We also conduct personal hygiene classes for school children,” says Deepa.
Deepa shares a brief life history of what prompted her to start an old age home. “I lost my father when I was 14 years old. My grandmother was paralysed. I had a brother and a sister to support and I was in class 10. My mother used to work as a maid at people’s house. Along with her I partook doing other jobs to run the house,” she says.
The family couldn’t take care of Deepa’s grandmother and hence admitted her in an old age home. “When I visited the home, I saw the pathetic condition in which the old people were. Their diapers were not changed and they were not taken care of properly. Affordability was a question for us. The love and care that they were lacking touched me. That guilt was always with me. It was our duty to take care of my grandmother but we couldn’t due to our circumstances,” says Deepa.
Soon after witnessing the conditions, Deepa decided to start an old -age home.
The foundation wants families to stay together. They want to eliminate the existence of old age homes.
“We offer counselling services. We do not promote old age homes. We want the families to be together. In old age, people want to be with their families. We ask the families to take care of their elders. There were cases when families didn’t even turn up for the last rights of their elders.” says Deepa. “We are seva oriented,” she says.
“The organisation is a non-commercial one. I decided that anyone who can or cannot afford old age home and care must be allowed to stay with us. We do verify and visit their homes and to check if they really are not able to afford the expenses,” she adds.
She says that government hospitals show indifference when approached for treatment. Medical emergencies are not immediately attended and there is a lot of negligence involved, she adds.
The foundation’s food sponsor is Sree Sai Hunger Relief Trust, a US-based charitable organisation while medicines will soon be aided from Apollo Hospitals. They also have regular small-time donors who sponsor food and other necessities.
The foundation has 25 members at the moment and is situated in JP Nagar, 8th phase. Deepa says the team needs more volunteers to take care of the elders.