Shelter for homeless senior citizens to come up in Belur

The homeless and destitute elderly people are going to get a shelter soon at Belur in Howrah. Vaishali Dalmiya, MLA from Bally Assembly constituency, has taken up a project jointly with the Howrah Municipal Corporation to provide shelter to at least 40 homeless elderly people.

There is a two-storied building of the Howrah Municipal Corporation at Belur in Howrah. At present, a health centre runs in a portion of the building while a major part of it is lying unused. Thus, a proposal was floated to the Howrah Municipal Corporation to allow turning the vacant portion of the building to a shelter for homeless elderly people.

Dalmiya said: “Permission in this regard has already been given by the Mayor Rathin Chakraborty. Some work needs to be done to make the building, which is in a poor condition, ready for the project and the task will start soon for which money will be given from MLA Lad funds. The shelter is expected to be ready by the end of January 2017.”

The health centre will continue running at a particular portion of building. The health centre in the same building would be of great advantage as the elderly people, who will be staying there, can go through medical check-up at least once a week by the doctor visiting the health centre and in case of any emergency, the doctor can provide treatment to the elderly people. At the same time, the people from outside will also continue getting the facility of the health centre as it is taking place now.

It may be mentioned that the plan to set up a shelter for homeless elderly people was taken mainly to serve people from financially weaker section. The reason is that there are many places where elderly people from affluent classes are kept against payment of a good amount of money. 

But there are only a few such places where homeless elderly people from financially weaker section can get accommodation. However, there is no such hard and fast rule for the shelter coming up at Belur. An elderly person from even an affluent family would get accommodation if he or she did not have anyone to look after them or any place to stay.

It may be mentioned that it had been a long standing problem for the state-run hospitals in every districts where sons and daughters admit their aged parents when they suffer from old age related diseases and never take them back home.