SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh has called for an end to el­der abuse in T&T. He was at the time de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress dur­ing an In­di­an Ar­rival Day din­ner at the Es­per­an­za Shiv Mandir in cen­tral Trinidad. In­dars­ingh said he was very much sad­dened to learn how the el­der­ly na­tion­als are be­ing treat­ed in cer­tain cir­cles. He said some in so­ci­ety are now caught up in a web of dis­re­spect, in­di­vid­u­al­ism, greed and self­ish­ness.

The for­mer labour union leader said he has been bom­bard­ed with hor­ror sto­ries of el­der­ly abuse at his con­stituen­cy of­fices. "Over the past two years as an Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, I know it was ex­ist­ing but I did not know it was ex­ist­ing on such a wide­spread scale. "This is af­ter their tremen­dous sense of sac­ri­fice the younger gen­er­a­tion seems to be hell-bent on hav­ing them ei­ther will over their prop­er­ty and be­long­ings and in cer­tain in­stances ben­e­fits as pen­sion­ers on their be­half.

"It is sad to say that per­sons with­in the com­mu­ni­ty are com­ing to my of­fice for help, cry­ing out for as­sis­tance. "I am say­ing to you as a com­mu­ni­ty af­ter 167 years we have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure those who would have giv­en their blood, sweat and tears and made tremen­dous sac­ri­fices to en­joy the cur­rent sta­tus we en­joy as proud mem­bers of the East In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty.

"We al­so have a sig­nif­i­cant re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that those who would have made tremen­dous sac­ri­fices their lives would be in some lev­el of com­fort and re­spect," In­dars­ingh said.