Services for Senior Citizens Challenged

KOMPAS/HERYUNANTO

Heryunanto

Seventy-six years ago, Indonesia declared a national day specially designated to appreciate senior citizens.

Out of admiration for Dr KRT Radjiman Widiodiningrat, who at an advanced age brilliantly presided over the meeting of the Committee on Preparatory Work for the Independence of Indonesia (BPUPKI) in 1945, the event was adopted as a milestone in the appreciation of senior citizens.

However, after more than half a century, how is the appreciation of elders manifested? What about the services available to them?

Approaches to appreciating senior citizens

According to 2020 Statistics Indonesia data, senior citizens constitute 10 percent of Indonesia’s population, or around 27.1 million people. In 2025, the senior population is expected to reach 33.7 million, or 11.8 percent of the population.

Meanwhile, based on senior citizen population projections in Asia, a demographic change will occur in 2030. A total of 60 percent of the Asian population will be composed of those aged 60 and beyond. In other words, the senior population in Indonesia, as well as that in Asia will increase.

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With the ever-rising number of senior citizens, two approaches have emerged to provide support and services for this population group.

In the first approach, as the senior population is on the rise, thought should be given to a supporting capacity boost. Senior citizens are entitled to be accorded recognition and room for the attainment of a decent and dignified life.

This approach sees seniors as a group requiring careful treatment. They are considered vulnerable and should not necessarily be overactive. The question is: What services are available and ready to meet the condition of elders? Indonesia has a rule to guarantee the fulfillment of seniors’ rights: Law No.13/1998.

The various rights of seniors are to be enforced by the state, as stipulated in Article 5, Paragraph 2 of the law. These are the rights to spiritual and religious services, health services, employment services, education and training services, the use of public facilities and infrastructure, legal aid services, social protection and social aid.

Normatively, the state guarantees the fulfillment of seniors’ rights covering the various kinds of services it provides. But in reality, do senior citizens enjoy their rights to these varied services?

The second approach regards the rising senior population as opening new opportunities for people of greater age to live more productively after retirement. This seems to be primarily considered and promoted in countries that are already more developed such as Singapore and South Korea. Getting older is not the end of everything.

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These countries give thought to the role and social involvement that can be developed to turn this growing population into a productive force. The term for seniors is no longer defined as elderly or ageing citizens, but rather people with longevity who are successful and productive. Policies and programs are thus drawn up to support this.

Becoming productive seniors in families can be achieved through intergenerational activity like transferring knowledge from the older generation to the younger one or becoming productive seniors in society, such as serving as volunteers for community activity. Seniors’ areas of interest and needs can also be mapped out for their further studies to earn college degrees through cooperation with universities.

It is believed that by this second approach, seniors will have a higher life expectancy because as humans, male and female, their existence will be longer. The seniors will lead a life with happy hearts.

KOMPAS/ADITYA PUTRA PERDANA

Residents exercise on 9 Aug. 2019 at the Wisma Lansia Harapan Asri nursing home in Banyumanik subdistrict of Semarang, Central Java. The nursing home provides care for 68 current residents who hail from Semarang and its surrounding areas, as well as from Jakarta, Surabaya and Palembang.

The question is whether the second approach can be chosen while senior citizens are facing a problem in the fulfillment of their rights to public services provided by the state.

Challenges to public services

Based on personal observation and the experience of institutions engaged in the issue of elders, senior citizens’ rights have not yet been fulfilled. This is, among other reasons, due to inefficiency in the administration of public services for seniors who handle their pension payments. It is not a problem if the seniors have family members who can help handle the collection of their pensions.

The problem arises when these seniors have to handle it themselves. It means that senior citizens with no family members to help them can be economically vulnerable because they get no service facilities to access their economic resources.

Then, there is the question of poor elders who have to work in order to survive, in addition to seniors who live alone with adequate supporting systems. The preamble of the 1945 Constitution states that the objective of establishing the state was to promote the welfare of society. This means that the state was founded on the basis of the concept of a welfare state or that which emphasizes public welfare.

WRI.OR.ID

Sita Aripurnami

The rights of senior citizens should first be fulfilled, only then will the concept welfare adopted by the state be realized. In this way, Indonesia will be a state that is oriented toward the welfare of its citizens, including senior ones. The time has come to invite young people to lead the change by initiating intergenerational thinking to support a love-seniors movement so that their rights and protections as fellow citizens will be secured and the public service challenges for these senior citizens will be promptly addressed.

Sita Aripurnami, Executive Director, Women’s Research Institute

This article was translated by Aris Prawira.