The entire Puerto Rican society has the unavoidable duty to open its eyes to the painful reality exposed in this newspaper a few days ago of the enormous number of older adults, in all corners of the archipelago, who, in the last days of their lives, have been left helpless and are living and dying in abandonment.
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Lee este artículo en español.
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This tragedy is one of the most complex consequences of the demographic crisis that Puerto Rico has been experiencing for at least two decades, with the massive emigration of mostly young people and the drastic drop in the birth rate, both a result of the economic difficulties that the country has experienced since the middle of the first decade of this century, which have had the effect of increasing the average age here, from 32 to 44 years, in just two decades.
To other consequences of this that we have already seen, such as the bankruptcy of the public retirement systems, we can add what was exposed in this newspaper last weekend: more than 200,000 people over 65 years old living alone, almost half of them below the poverty level and many of them depending on the charity of strangers even to feed themselves.
In that sense, the two non-governmental entities reviewed in this newspaper that bring food to the elderly homeless deserve applause and collaboration: the Jobos Bay Ecodevelopment Initiative (Idebajo) in Salinas and Amo mis Abus, in Las Marías. They, and many others, fill some of the institutional void in the management of this problem and deserve the support of the whole society.
The State, for the moment, lacks the institutional capacity to respond to this enormous problem. Only 1,326 people receive housekeeping services from the central government, with a waiting list of 1,800. Another undetermined number receive the same service from municipalities, which clearly cannot meet the demand and which, moreover, is in danger due to the well-known economic difficulties faced by municipalities.
What to do about this? The administration of Governor Jenniffer González is testing, for the moment, two answers: she founded the Unit for the Integral Attention of the Elderly in Fortaleza and is preparing to create an autonomous administration, within the Department of the Family (DF), focused on this population.
These are good initial steps. But the governor and her team must be careful that these new agencies do not become politicized and inefficient bureaucratic lumps like so many other agencies. For the magnitude of this problem, agile entities are needed, with sufficient resources and directed by people with unquestionable experience and commitment to this population.
Policies designed with the characteristics of this population in mind will also be necessary, backed up, of course, with resources and, in addition, a legal framework that avoids one of the saddest manifestations of this problem: the limbo in which older adults are left without family at the moment of death, which leads too many to the heartbreaking outcome of being cremated or donating their corpses to the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) without a farewell worthy of a human being.
None of this is impossible, nor is it beyond the reach of our limited resources, if this problem is given the priority and urgent status it deserves.
It is important for all of us to understand, however, that the government alone cannot deal with this problem. There is an important component of individual responsibility to our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings and even neighbors, to which we are all obliged to respond. If everyone fulfills his or her responsibility, directly or by collaborating with those who do, fewer of our elderly will live the sad fate of those who today are at the mercy of the charity of strangers.
We all have tasks here. It is not for nothing that we are called “the land of the blessed woe”; it is because of the compassionate and supportive character we demonstrate whenever there is an opportunity. Nothing summons the legendary solidarity of Puerto Ricans at this time more than the painful fate of our abandoned elderly.
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This content was translated from Spanish to English using artificial intelligence and was reviewed by an editor before being published.
