The UAE is
celebrating the "International Day of Older Persons" with the world,
which falls on the 1st of October each year, and this year's theme
is "Leaving No One Behind: Promoting a Society for All". The United
Nations designated this day to be an annual event to draw attention to this
important age group that contributed to the building of societies, in order to
protect their rights and encourage them to continue giving.
The State had adopted
in 2012 a national plan for the care of the elderly during the next 20 years,
and a special strategy to provide several services for them in the long term,
in the areas of social services, health, housing, employment, education,
financial security, and infrastructure for the elderly. The Ministry of Higher
Education and Scientific Research commended the care accorded by the State and
the leadership to this age group and their efforts to embrace and support the
elderly with all means and methods to enable them to perform their role in various
ways.
Security and medical
experts called for the need to list the medical specialty (Geriatrics) as a special
course in the medical studies at local universities, and encourage citizens to take
it, in order to build qualified and specialized cadres capable of dealing with
the elderly and understanding their health conditions.
This came during a
seminar organized by the Community Development Authority in Dubai recently,
coinciding with the International Day of Older Persons on the first of October
each year, under the title "Their Happiness is Our Goal" in order to
protect the rights of this age group and encourage them to continue giving.
The experts called for
the need for integrated coordination between the relevent authorities to ensure
the protection, care, integration, and participation of older people, through sharing
their initiatives and services to make the most of them, and coordinating with
each other to ensure the provision of detailed and accurate data for the
elderly, which helps develop protection measures, proper care, and planning for
future needs for resources, in addition to identifying their services and
programs designed for the elderly and other relevant authorities to ensure
inclusiveness and integration.
It is noteworthy
that the elderly make up about 5% of the total population of UAE, as this group
of people is considered a category with special care due to their requirements
of health and social development, and it is expected that the proportion of
elderly in the UAE will witness a remarkable increase in the next four decades,
and might reach up to11% in 2032 and 29% in 2050.
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