NAB: Include seniors in holiday preparations

Families have been urged to include elders in preparations and merriment this Yuletide season for the seniors’ mental health.

December is “generally a busy period” for families across the country and “very often” senior citizens, especially those who are not mobile “can be left unattended”, said the coordinator of the National Assistance Board’s (NAB) Elder Care Companions Programme, George Griffith.

He added: “It is said that a person can be lonely in a full household, and it is important that family members continue to involve the senior citizens in the household in all that is going on in terms of the preparations for Christmas and so on.”

Griffith told Barbados TODAY that over the years, some seniors have maintained the traditional Christmas values, and their families should ensure that they celebrate in the manner they did before unless they are willing to modernise those preparations because it “is important for the well-being of the seniors”.

“So if the seniors are interested in sending cards to their extended family members or their priests or their MPs or people that they look up to, we should encourage them to do that . . . I think that we need to keep these seniors as active as possible. Let them share the excitement of the preparation for Christmas, and do not leave them to their own devices because, very often, that can contribute to the isolation and the loneliness.”

The veteran social worker explained that seniors who have “worked so long and hard over the years and especially at Christmas, we have to make them feel that they are wanted and that they are part of whatever is going on in that household”, adding that they, too, experience loneliness during the Yuletide season.

“I’ve often made a point, and I’ve written about it too, that in the midst of all the merriment and the joy that we share, there are some people that this Christmas is not going to be a happy period. . . It is going to be a period really of despondency . . . and I think that we have to go the extra mile to ensure that we look out for those persons.

“Seniors can become depressed, and I can tell you that when persons look back at what they used to do – they were getting the yard ready, getting the house ready, now because of arthritis, because of an amputation, because of a stroke, they’re not able to do those things and when they reflect on that, it brings a level of sadness that is beyond worse.”

Younger people in households, he urged, and even churches should reach out to those who are shut-in to ensure that they feel that somebody is caring about them.

Griffith added: “It’s a serious matter and across the world, I mean, I’m not saying that it’s happened in Barbados, but across the world, senior citizens commit suicide because of the same isolation and loneliness and reflecting on happier times. Sometimes, the children have gone overseas, the children have moved and set up their own families and are too busy to pay attention to them, and people can become very depressed, and I fear that here in Barbados we need to reach out more to our senior citizens, especially at this time of year.”

He also issued a call for relatives who control the purse strings to ensure seniors are provided the supplies they need for sustenance.

The NAB’s companions, he explained, are there to assist the elderly in preparing breakfast, a light meal or a snack.

“From time to time, the companion is there willing to work with the senior and to prepare that breakfast or snack or light meals for the senior and very often there are no supplies, and that creates a problem for us. It frustrates the companion, and it’s unfair to the senior citizen. . . and we would want to appeal to the persons who are controlling the resources of that senior citizen, their pensions or so, to ensure that they provide the supplies that are necessary for the sustenance of that older person. . . because it will reflect negatively on us if we have a caregiver in the house for a whole day and that old person is still going hungry.” (FW)