Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter more than 90 years of car­ing for the el­der­ly, the JC Mc­Don­ald Home for the Aged in San Fer­nan­do is ap­peal­ing for help as it strug­gles to meet month­ly ex­pens­es, pay staff and car­ry out much-need­ed re­pairs.

Chair­per­son Michelle Gopauls­ingh ap­pealed to the pub­lic for as­sis­tance, say­ing do­na­tions—whether fi­nan­cial or in the form of gro­ceries—would be great­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed.

“Our biggest chal­lenge right now is that for three and a half years we have not re­ceived sub­ven­tion. That is our chal­lenge be­cause we have lots of re­pairs to do and staff to pay. Ba­si­cal­ly, we are just mak­ing it through month to month,” she ex­plained. The ap­peal came on Sat­ur­day as the Ro­tary Club of San Fer­nan­do host­ed a free med­ical out­reach for res­i­dents, pro­vid­ing blood pres­sure and di­a­betes screen­ings. Doc­tors al­so re­viewed med­ical records and of­fered rec­om­men­da­tions for on­go­ing care.

Gopauls­ingh ex­pressed grat­i­tude to the Ro­tary Club for its con­tin­ued sup­port.

Ro­tary Club pres­i­dent Jer­rine Sam­lals­ingh said their theme this year is “Cre­ate last­ing im­pact,” and the med­ical out­reach is one of the ini­tia­tives aligned with that vi­sion.

“The el­der­ly are of­ten for­got­ten, and we want them to feel as im­por­tant as we are, be­cause through them, we are who we are to­day,” she said.

Dr Sarah Ram­paul, at­tached to the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment at Mount Hope Hos­pi­tal, ex­plained that com­mon ail­ments af­fect­ing the el­der­ly in­clude hy­per­ten­sion and di­a­betes.

“Both of them are very silent, so un­less we look for it, we will not find it. And there are so many con­se­quences—heart is­sues, kid­ney is­sues,” she cau­tioned. She added that se­nior cit­i­zens al­so suf­fer from de­pres­sion caused by lone­li­ness.

“That is one we have to pay clos­er at­ten­tion to be­cause it’s some­thing that’s of­ten over­looked,” she ad­vised.

Dr Ram­paul urged loved ones to watch for warn­ing signs such as loss of ap­petite, with­draw­al or fre­quent headaches. She al­so high­light­ed the dan­gers of falls among the el­der­ly.

“Falls in the el­der­ly: a sim­ple slip, break your shoul­der, break your wrist, break your hip. So, make sure for those who have lim­it­ed mo­bil­i­ty or are a lit­tle un­sta­ble, that you keep a close eye, or you have some­body else to keep a close eye on them.”

She not­ed that Alzheimer’s and oth­er forms of de­men­tia are com­mon but em­pha­sised that fam­i­ly in­volve­ment makes the biggest dif­fer­ence.

“It’s the peo­ple they have around them that re­al­ly makes a dif­fer­ence. Re­straints, on the oth­er hand, can ac­tu­al­ly wors­en their con­di­tion,” she warned.