BMJ  2005;331:422 (20 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7514.422

News

Aid agencies ignored special needs of elderly people after tsunami

Ganapati Mudur

New Delhi

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Elderly people who survived the Asian tsunami on 26 December last year were unable to get health care, food aid, or cash support because relief packages were not specially designed for them, the non-profit agency HelpAge International has said.

Despite attempts in the past to highlight the vulnerability of elderly people during emergencies, the tsunami relief effort did not take into account the special needs of this group in its initial phase, the agency said in a report released last week.

HelpAge researchers said that psychosocial services for elderly people after the 26 December tsunami were "totally inadequate"

Credit: CHRIS STOWERS/PANOS

The tsunami killed more than 300 000 people. It displaced about 92 000 people over the age of 60 in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Describing the plight of elderly survivors of the tsunami in the four countries, the report said these people became "almost invisible" when relief . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Issues arising from lobby of UN to outlaw circumcision
George Hill and John V Geisheker
BMJ 2005 331: 781. [Extract] [Full Text]

Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ