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HOW CHILDREN CAN TAKE CARE OF ELDERLY PARENTS DURING PANDEMIC

Children should rise as primary caregivers to their elderly parents. Parents are the epitome of this socio-culture ecosystem we breathe in and a pandemic horror should never dictate to children an escape from their prescribed moral and ethical responsibilities towards them.

The sirens of the ambulances break the eerie silence of the long evenings. Hospital emergency entrances are clogged with people gasping for breath, their relatives pleading with folded hands. Behind them and all around the hospitals are the fatigued, worn-out faces of the front liners and doctors trying their best to handle and serve as many as they could. Amid all this unnerving commotion, old parents, many of whom are all alone in big metropolitan cities which has completely gone online in their regular supplies as they have their e-trainer children far away, sometimes in another country, are struggling to see some light for regular supplies and medical attention over and above the fear of dying unseen during Covid times.

Extraordinary times bring out the best and the worst in people. There are sad stories aplenty. In the neighbourhood, a dog was found tied in the terrace without food and water for two days as the lone owner had passed away. A few houses away, a family abandoned the old and dying Covid positive mother. Along the way, we also encountered sarcastic and bordering-on-insulting words from a reputed doctor in a big hospital when we were begging for a bed. The last one was a direct experience of what hundreds of million common Indians without money or power go through every day. The pandemic has proved to be a great leveller in this very unequal society. In the end, health for all is what matters, not fighter jets or big names.

Our own experience is a book to share. Life changed for my octogenarian father, who is up and about much before the others, sitting in the balcony with his morning herbal honey tea, followed by pranayama. It has always been this way. When we were children, it included a game of tennis and some kitchen gardening before he headed out to his office. A former bureaucrat, who worked tirelessly in and for the northeastern region, he was always on the move, on work. Many years on, this disciplined routine remains. Only the pace is now lower, his frame frailer. A former Delhi University academic and Sahitya Akademy winning writer, Ma’s world comprised her books and the home she set up with her companion over 50 years ago. Giving them company now is Khoku, the loyal mongrel, enjoyed by them for his insatiable greed and gluttony alongside two delightful helpers at home. They chose to settle down in Gurugram, 30 years ago, both leading an active social life, spending time with their children/ grandchildren only as and when they felt their absence. My brother and I counted ourselves lucky that they were happily self-sufficient and more importantly, still healthy, and mobile.

Come 2020, my gift to them was two customised masks as I visited them during the new year. They were just starting to make an appearance at airports. A “certain virus” was on the way, we were vaguely warned by co-passengers. My Ma sternly warned, “We do not want any restriction on the air we breathe” as I handed them the masks. She pushed them in a drawer. The lockdown arrived. Their content little world turned upside down. Captives in their home, they longed for company and all of us. Routine medical checkups stopped. Ma’s health issues multiplied. My father’s creatinine shot up. After eight months when I met them, I saw a different set of parents — vulnerable, insecure, and shockingly aged. When I managed a checkup in November 2020, my father had reached end-stage kidney failure. Dialysis was the only solution. Thrice a week four-hour sessions were needed. So that was how life progressed, in and out of hospitals. I moved base from Guwahati to Gurugram to be with them, much against their vehement protests about disrupting my life and work. The lone sibling lives overseas making it difficult for him with travel restrictions and related issues. When he could finally visit them, he took the prudent step of vaccinating them, taking a chance on any possible complications for my father. What a blessing this was as we are to realise later. 

As if the first wave wasn’t enough, the second wave arrived and before we even realised it, my father tested Covid positive on 19 April 2021. Given his frequent hospital visits, this was always a risk but we had no other option. His usual positive demeanour took a hit. Oxygen monitoring and steam inhalation became a routine practice. Very soon Ma tested positive too. The worst possible situation was that at this age parents do have comorbidities. Desperate calls to hospitals followed. There were no beds, no oxygen, and also no nurses and caregivers too. My brother frantically tried to organise home ICU nursing care online and over the phone. Two days of following up with various providers, all of whom invariably ran out of available nurses, yielded nothing in the end. Endless calls were made every uncertain day, every WhatsApp message was followed up on hoping against hope. Well-wishers and friends were informed. But all to no avail. Everyone everywhere faced the same situation. The first deaths of people we knew were already coming in. This was a dystopic nightmare. Delhi/NCR was at war. Period.

There was no time to lose. I called my husband over urgently from Guwahati. The first thing we did on his arrival was to take the booster shot. We became full-time caregivers with little or no experience for patients who needed to be in a hospital under professional care. A friendly neighbourhood chemist was the next help in providing an oxygen concentrator and medicines. Since their regular doctors were too busy to give us regular online sessions, the family physician became a lifesaver. My father’s SPO was just 93 at best, his BP had shot up. His lungs were impacted. Steroids were prescribed. We went about giving whatever was prescribed, running in and out of home for medications. Every day, every hour we heard of familiar people vanishing. There were faces to the numbers now who were dear and cherished. 

In between, an angel miraculously stepped in, in the form of a dear friend who helped us get a seat for my father at a leading Gurugram hospital. But within three days, he was discharged because he had “no oxygen requirement”. Earlier that morning the lady who shared his room had passed away even as my father looked on from his bed. We had nothing to say when asked to take him back home, so his age and comorbidities had taken a backseat now. And given the situation, we could sort of understand anyway. On the very next day of his return, he felt a lot worse and an urgent lung scan revealed high-moderate/ low-severe level Covid pneumonia. But by now, a pot of gold was easier to find than a hospital bed (and a lot less valuable!). 

Some doctors who go beyond duty even during Covid fears are God’s soldiers on earth. The role of the wonderful dialysis ward staff and doctors at Narayana Hospital, Gurugram, who would wait for “uncle” to arrive on the appointed days, remains unforgettable. In between, there have been quite a few moments of panic when father’s oxygen dipped dangerously, and innumerable moments of prayer and invocations to the Almighty for his help. Everybody is now living on a prayer and we know we have been so much luckier thus far than the thousands of families so utterly devastated around the country.

New times are described with WhatsApp voice messages and images. Motivational wishes and helpful information both have flowed in from many, some of whom were themselves suffering from the outbreak. This is when enlightened citizens have come together on messaging forums and even in-person to help one another. The much-maligned WhatsApp University has always brightened mornings and evenings to give a feel of togetherness and shared suffering. Every single time, this shining evidence of our common humanity provides more strength and moral support than one may suppose.

Families who never cared for each other have started family WhatsApp groups to connect to their ageing members in the family and to provide them hope in such depressing times as their partners in work and morning walks are lost. It’s heartening to see many younger nephews and nieces and their children keeping the elderly upbeat over countless jokes, family anecdotes, and music sessions. Let no one’s elderly parents’ love for life and sense of humour fade in the face of this deadly pandemic. 

Children who may sometimes not be so young should still feel that providence has given them a chance to look after their parents at least this one time. Nursing, cooking, cleaning, just spending time with their life-givers is perhaps the most fulfilling thing they have ever done. Caretaking with appropriate precautions never kills. I write here to share my story and the thoughts with those who are abandoning their old parents, not visiting them when they are needed the most, letting them die in isolation of a dark, ill-cared nursing home or even scared to give them a just last rites for justifying their fears. Children should rise as primary caregivers to their elderly parents and battle the situation to do everything for them. We do not know what the future holds or how long this will go on. But we need to internalise an age-old lesson, parents are the epitome of this socio-culture ecosystem we breathe in and a pandemic horror should never dictate to children an escape from their prescribed moral and ethical responsibilities towards them. The virus and the oximeter will pass but our negligence towards them will hang our heads in everlasting shame if we abandon them today.

The writer is a travel historian & communication officer at the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research, Guwahati, Assam.

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