KOCHI: With age comes difficulties. They vary from physical to emotional issues. Probably one of the reason why old people are said to get sensitive as the age progresses. This also makes it important that senior citizens are dealt with enough care, attention and comfort. The concept of 'age friendly hospital' grew from one such effort to ease the life of older citizens.
"The framework of age-friendly hospital was developed by IMA Cochin back in 2016 and was submitted to IMA national 'Care of Elderly'. National IMA has now issued a circular asking all hospitals to adopt age friendly concept. By making a hospital age friendly, we are aiming at a hospital not with just mere discounts and benefits for older persons but also physical infrastructure, process of care, communication and services , emotional and behavioural environment and the written hospital policies," said Dr Praveen G Pai, Convenor, 'Age friendly initiative'- IMA.
With the pilot project now started in Renai Medcity, the 'age friendly' hospital framework would eventually create age friendly hospitals in private and public sector. Once the framework is ready, it will be shared with hospitals across the state and the regional IMA's. If hospitals follow this framework, they will be certified as 'Age- Friendly' hospital.
"In four to six months the final draft of the framework should be ready. As of now we are considering the implementation at Renai as a pilot. However, achieving the 'age friendly' status is not far behind. Each hospital will have to become age friendly from the front office to the super speciality departments. The functioning and 'age friendly attitude' of key departments when it comes to geriatric care like cardiology and nephrology will also be monitored," added Dr Praveen.
The project is the combined effort of Indian Medical Association (IMA), Magics NGO and the 'age friendly initiative' of IMA Cochin.