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Bed at St. Joseph's Retirement Home in Mangalore
Photo: Gayatri Ganyu
The 63-year-old, who doesn't want his last name published, never thought that Sanathan would end up on the streets of Mangalore with just a bottle of rum in his hand.
He had a job, a house, a family.
But then, in April 2021
,
in the middle of one of the worst phases of the corona pandemic in India, within a few weeks
his wife and furniture gone, he lost his job and could no longer afford his home.
According to the former medical technician, his adult son also didn't want to have anything to do with him anymore.
It was a time when people in the second most populous country in the world were full of fear, fear of infection, of even more poverty, of death.
Medical care for those not suffering from Covid
was reduced to a minimum, the social emergency aid consisted mainly of food distribution.
Everyone was focused on themselves and their immediate family, and those who were without families during those months were among the losers of the pandemic.
Sanathan, a short, wiry man with a gray mustache and a salmon-colored T-shirt, got through the days on government food deals, but the nights were tough.
The few so-called Shelter Homes - overnight accommodations provided by the government for the destitute - overflowed.
One day, at a White Doves NGO food distribution, a staff member noticed Sanathan's difficult situation and offered him a place in one of the organization's homes.
The White Doves Psychiatric and Destitute Home – a facility for more than 130 destitute, elderly or mentally ill people in the southern Indian coastal city of Mangalore – was set up in the early 1990s by the Indian Corrine Antoinette Rasquinha with the help of donations.
Sanathan was given his own bed in the dormitory with the shiny floor, regular meals and, thanks to the structure of this place, quickly managed to get off the alcohol.
"Old people are like children - they need care," he says.
"The Indian government has failed to take care of all these people during the pandemic," says operator Corrine.
Although there are more and more old people's homes in India, only a fraction of the old people are accommodated there.
Most of the approximately 800 such homes have no more than 100 places, many even less - for an estimated 120 million people over 60 years of age in the country.
At the same time, the need for care facilities has increased significantly.
At the latest during the corona pandemic, it became clear how overwhelmed many families are with the care of their relatives, reports Ritu Rana, health expert at HelpAge India.
For centuries, caregiving in India has been considered a family affair.
Also because family in the country traditionally sees itself as an institution that offers social support for all its members.
Sons usually stay with their parents, even after they get married.
Daughters accordingly move into the family of their parents-in-law.
If the older ones need care, the younger ones take care of them.
But fewer and fewer relatives are willing to care for aging parents, according to the largest Indian aging study by the International Institute for Population Studies (IIPS).
Many children from the middle and upper classes leave the country to study – and often do not return.
The old ones are left alone.
Added to this was the pandemic and the lack of money that lockdowns and months of job losses brought on many families.
The struggle for daily survival is so hard for many poor Indians that an old or sick person who can no longer be productive and contribute to the livelihood is perceived as a burden.
And not just financially: for fear of infection, many nurses refused to visit patients at home during the pandemic.
"Many relatives were completely overwhelmed with the care," reports Mohan Raj, operator of a home care service based in Mangalore, "we received numerous requests for helpers every day."
There is no financial help from the state.
Aid organizations such as HelpAge India increased their support for older people at the beginning of the second, extremely violent corona wave in India in mid-2021.
Rana reports, for example, with a hotline for old people with mental health problems that have worsened during the pandemic or have broken out again.
In addition, employees of the organization called older people directly to ask what exactly they lacked in the household.
The use of telemedicine also started last year - "but many old people still don't feel comfortable with it," reports Rana.
The few places in the homes are in demand - but sometimes they are only needed for a few weeks or months.
Sanathan has since left the facility in Mangalore.
Still sober, he wants to try and start over.
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