Lokmat News Network
Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar
In the city’s old-age homes, 181 parents have breathed their last without their children by their side. Caretakers narrate painful stories where the very parents who sacrificed everything for their children were left to die in loneliness.
One father raised his daughter alone after his wife’s death, never marrying again. Yet, when he passed away, she didn’t even come for his funeral. Another old man from Jalna spent his life selling clothes on a bicycle to educate his sons, who later became teachers. Age and diabetes left him frail, but instead of care, his sons abandoned him at Matoshree Old Age Home, even instructing staff to give him less food so that he would “die sooner.” When he finally passed away, his last wish of a village cremation was denied. The home had to perform his final rites. At Aastha Foundation, one elderly man was forced out by his wife and daughter after they transferred his house to their names. Homeless, he fought a long legal battle to reclaim it, but died of a heart attack before judgment. Neither his wife nor daughter came to see him in his last moments.
The neglect is not rare.
• Matoshree Old Age Home: 170 deaths
• Krupalu Old Age Home: 2 deaths
• Aadhar Old Age Home: 3 deaths
• Manuski Old Age Home: 3 deaths
• Aastha Old Age Home: 3 deaths
Total: 181 deaths
“Whenever a parent dies here, we inform their children. Many never turn up. Some who do, refuse to touch the body, standing far away with a handkerchief on their nose,” said Sagar Pagore of Matoshree Old Age Home.