About three years ago, a national media
that contains a story about, not well maintained 2.8 million elderly people in
Indonesia.
There
are many things that explain why it happened, but the media reveal at least
three things: culture, lifestyle, and economic factors. In
more ironic that article says that there are more number of elderly being
particularly vulnerable displaced;
there
are 4.6 million poor people into the class of vulnerable displaced.
If considered in a broader scope, official statistics did mention that the
development of elderly tend to continue to grow from year to year, especially
in terms of life expectancy.
If
in old-age population of 7.9 million people with a life expectancy up to 52.2
years, then in 2010 the number of people in these groups increased rapidly; reached
23.9 million people with a life expectancy up to 67.4 years. In
the same year the statistics noted that as many as 12.3 million of elderly
living in rural areas, while the remaining 15.6 million live in urban areas.
Here we can see that there is not significant among the elderly who live in the
village and in the city.
It
was said that the population classified as elderly parents who live in the
village have a life expectancy that is much larger, due to many factors such as
the absence of stress, not a lot of breathing air polluted
, and consumption of
food is much healthier. They are
also not susceptible to fatal diseases.
Anything Problems Solved Crucial For The Elderly
Outside
the statistics that define quantitatively the level of life expectancy of
Indonesia and also the growth rate of the elderly, we at least need to know
further various problems faced by the elderly.
The frail in this country does not mean
not to have its own problems. In
many of the citizens of the city streets will easily find elderly people who
are still forced to work as hawkers selling merchandise underestimated, despite
their age actually being unfit to work.
In Yogyakarta, for example, several points
of the city, showing the frail who sells chicken eggs and a series of other
items that at first glance is not really needed. On
the one hand it may be a good phenomenon, because the frail looks can be
independent even in old age that it is not productive. Nevertheless,
the phenomenon shows a great irony, namely how the frail urban poverty also
faced problems in the rest of his life.
Although seem ironic, but that's the real
situation. Several
elderly people actually can not enjoy them with good old days.
At
least there are some common issues related to problems such as the surge in the
number of elderly:
The surge in the number of elderly over
the years demonstrated its own challenges in the economic, social, and various
other aspects of life. This
led to a portrait of the frail in Indonesia is not very good. In
a broader scope, many elderly people who live in rural areas, while others have
previously been left to the city at the time they are still productive.
One of the most difficult problems of the
frail state of health in general, is too alarming. That
is, the level of the frail health
is not good, or at least still low. Score
of the frail Diseased growing from year to year.
According to statistics too, in 2006 there
were 2.7 million elderly stranded. This
figure includes approximately 15% of the total amount of the frail that year.
Awareness
of the problems of the frail, although not accompanied by the optimum awareness
to improve the quality of economic and individual capacities in the old age.
Indeed,
in Indonesia there are already some devices legislation governing the elderly,
although basically public awareness and agencies - to the problems of the frail
- is still low. Beyond
that, the absence of a priority for senior management is another issue that is
no less complicated.
Although there are still many problems
that need to look for a solution in the future, the decrepit case actually not
only be a matter of national, but international. The
number of elderly in the region of Southeast Asia, for example, has reached 142
million people with a tendency that continued to rise from year to year. WHO,
the World Health Organization, had even asserted that all countries require early
socialization and also the right policy, so that the elderly can adopt a
healthy lifestyle.
In the end, the frail state is not really
a burden, but rather social groups that need to be considered by the state more
carefully. If may be aggregated, the frail is a group that requires specific
policies related to the well-being and their health. Strong economic growth, in
turn, can also trigger the condition in which the welfare of these groups may
be further increased. Nevertheless, it took a major breakthrough that is more
than just sow pro elderly policy.