For Francisco Cabezas from Convite the situation in Venezuela affects the senior citizen, but it will be worse for those who will age.

There is no international consensus that determines the age at which you are considered a senior citizen. In the case of Venezuela, it is understood that it is from 55 years for women, and 60 years for men. Ages from which each can begin to receive a pension for social security.

For the Organization Convite, the elderly people in Venezuela are living what could be their last years, in a serious social and economic crisis that affects them as much or worse than any other citizen.

Convite classifies the difficulties facing an older adult in Venezuela in three important factors: Eat in a healthy and balanced way, have regular access to medicine and be able to attend timely medical consultations.

The director general of the NGO, Francisco Cabezas, explains that the difficulties to feed themselves are evident in the high costs of animal proteins, reason for which nowadays they are practically forced to follow a diet high in carbohydrates.

One kilogram of meat exceeds 22 thousand bolivars, while the pension for a senior is 40 thousand bolivars, an amount that does not cover 5% of the basic food basket that in April stood around 1,924,265.02 bolivars.

Cabezas denounces that the inflationary spiral experienced by the country’s economy has caused older people to end up hostages of public policies such as Clap, which is not ” marvelous”, but it is the only thing they can have access to, which also does not include any proteins, only sometimes tuna.

On the subject of medicines, Convite calculates a shortage of 75% in eight cities of the country as of 2019. This shortage concerns particulary medicine for hypertension and diabetes. They also claim that this shortage index has been decreasing since May, however, this trend does not guarantee that older people have greater access to medicines due to costs.

For example, a blister of 14 pills of Losartan potassium costs 32 thousand bolivars, current price in Farmatodo pharmacies.

For Convite, a person who only depends on his pension ends up opting to abandon the treatment with such high prices of medicines, ,. The same thing happens with medical consultations.

“The consultations have practically been dollarized and in a public hospital there is a great demand and an appointment can take up to three months, when there are people who may require an immediate consultation to change a treatment,” Cabezas says.

Migration has also become a negative consequence for older people. The Agency of the United Nations for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced in recent days that the number reached 4 million.

According to the report on Human Mobility of Venezuelans “Informe Sobre la Movilidad Humana de Venezolanos”, presented in 2018, 73.5% of the exodus are people between 20 and 39 years old and barely 0.8% are adults over 60 to 69 years old. For Convite, this means that there is a large number of older people who are left alone in Venezuela, many of them sick, unable to eat healthy and without affection because their family left.

In Convite they warn of an increasing trend in suicide among older people. In its report Violent Deaths of the Elderly of 2017 “Muertes Violentas de Personas Mayores de 2017”, developed with information from 61 Venezuelan media, there were 25 suicides of older people.

“Many of the accidents that elderly people have on the street are associated with architectural barriers are high roads, lack of handrails, this is a society that has no awareness of older people.”

In summary, for Convite, public transportation, pedestrian crossings, and general roads throughout the country are not optimal for the older people, which represents a great risk to their physical safety.

It will be much worse for those who are getting older

Another situation that Convite warns about, is that the situation will be much worse for those who are aging in Venezuela because they say there is a large number of people in productive age and that demographic bonus “is being wasted and we will never have it again”.

“These people should be studying, producing, bringing wealth and talent to the country, but we have a huge number of people living poorly with precarious jobs and you are in the old age what you can capitalize on during your working life.”

Convite describes that part of this mass currently has precarious jobs without social security, collective bargaining and other labor benefits. An example of these are the government initiatives Chamba Juvenil (and now Chamba Mayor, for the older people) without taking into account that these people are aging without being able to build any capital with which to count in their old age, which in the future will become more dependent on the State.

“If you have this labor force, you have them working as a mototaxis or even for the State itself offering “chamba” because they do not even call it work, without social security or labor benefits, that is to employ cheap labor and to pay with a bag of food”.

In the case of the older people, he insists that Chamba Mayor’s plan would be positive if it were a voluntary initiative and not that people were forced to register out of need, so they consider that under normal conditions , the government should be guaranteeing them access to recreation, medical attention, medicines, instead of asking them to work.

Another problem of the older people is its decapitalization caused by inflation, that is, people who did achieve great capital, but currently can not maintain the same range of expenses, especially to maintain a large house, a luxury vehicle or to afford the condominium of an apartment in a good area.

“What we are experiencing is that many adults were practically decapitalized  due to hyperinflation. Many of them may have an apartment in a good area, a car they can not keep, many live in apartments where they cannot afford the condominium, which represents not only economic but physical wear, “Cabezas insists.

This Saturday, June 15, is World Elder Abuse Day, established by the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization (UN).

Link to original source: https://contrapunto.com/nacional/venezuela-es-el-peor-pais-del-continente-para-envejecer-segun-convite/