UAE senior citizens over the age of 60 will no longer be admitted and housed in special homes, if a new project gets the green light to go ahead, said Gulf News on Monday.
The paper quoted officials as saying that a number of rest homes and mobile clinical units will be set up to serve the elderly, with focus on home care “among their families instead of bringing them to special shelters where they feel deserted and abandoned.”
"It aims at avoiding the isolation of senior citizens socially, away from family and loved ones,” Obaid Ghanim, Director of the ministry's Department of Special Categories, told the paper.
Ghanim explained that the proposed projects would not be 'homes' for senior citizens, but cultural and social clubs where these people can practice various activities.
Each mobile clinical unit will include a psychologist, a social specialist, a physiotherapist and a physician. Ghanim said the work on the proposed project, after it is approved, will begin in a year.
The country’s senior citizens fall within a group that the Social Security Law, which came into effect in 1977, enumerates as being among those entitled to financial assistance from the state if required – Albawaba.com
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