Initiate measures for older people before it’s too late: UN expert

Mentioning Bangladesh’s progress in demographic dividend, a UN independent expert on older persons’ rights has called for initiating measures before it is too late.

The UN independent expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons, Claudia Mahler, made the call at a press conference in Dhaka on Thursday. Mahler wrapped up her 11-day tour of Bangladesh to assess the status of older persons’ human rights in the country.

The Preliminary Report on Population and Housing Census 2022 by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) this year showed that 9.21 per cent of the total population is older people. It was 7.47 per cent in 2011.

Replying to a question, Mahler said although Bangladesh has adopted the age above 60 as the older people it has multidimensional aspects as it depends on the nature of the job, living places, the nutrition they received and other many issues. For some people, it could be started from 40 as well, she added.

Although she praised the existence of a dedicated national policy, Mahler observed that many of the issues mentioned in the policy are yet to be attended to for lack of a time-bonding action plan.

She said most of the older people who get allowance said that the entire money, that they get quarterly basis, they spend for treatment.

Taking the observation into consideration, the country has the possibility to have nearly one-third of its population to be older persons once the current window of demographic dividend ends.

Claudia Mahler will present a full report of her country’s visit to the UN Human Rights Council in September 2023.

Mahler could not inform of the economic cost and health cost of not having healthy ageing, as she could not get sufficient data on this issue from the government or any other organizations.

She, however, said that the health cost for the ageing people is several times higher than young people.

Some of the hospitals in the country have already established a section for elderly people but they do not have the required efficient healthcare professionals. They badly need training as managing the cases is not the same for everyone, she observed.

She said Bangladesh has come to a position that if the country initiates proper necessary measures right now for these people it would be too late to tackle later.