I WISH to begin this week’s article by stating that from now until elections, most of my articles will relate to the issues being addressed by the ‘Friends of Donald’ group.
One of the issues which I myself hold dearly, and have written about during 2010, is the issue of providing improved services to our senior citizens. However, before I proceed, I must admit that since the late 90s, the government of Guyana has been making a lot of effort towards ensuring adequate provision of services are available for our elders.
As I’ve said in the previous articles relating to this issue, we have a culturally conditioned tendency to look down upon older people, whether we’re doing it in an explicitly derogatory or discriminatory manner or through condescension.  
I think it’s time the population works towards a reversal of that societal view which says that people beyond a certain age are suddenly stricken with senility and as such should be automatically ‘put out to pasture’.  We need to first of all recognise in a general sense that the post-retirement person is, on average, someone with a wealth of experience in their particular field, be it garbage disposal or financial management services. 
That basic recognition achieved, we then need to identify exactly what the particular skills and specialist knowledge bases that these people have to offer.  This inherently calls for the establishment of a database of persons, either retired or close to retirement, and I can think of no better initial source for such a database than the national census which will be executed in 2012.

In the last article on the topic, I proposed a one-stop-shop facility, strategically positioned around the country, where retired persons can access a range of services – existing and proposed – including general medication, prescriptions, pension, essential services, financial aid and even a free senior citizens’ shuttle bus service.  
The proposed database would serve – in conjunction with other sources of information – to strategically establish the location of such facilities. For example, one of these centres can be located in an area where there is a concentrated population of aged persons against one that is not. This would minimize the number of persons travelling to access such services, resulting in less logistical headaches and a greater conservation of resources such as gasoline, manpower and time, making it as effective and efficient a process as possible..
This amalgamation of needed services into one space would be crucial in easing the burden of activity and attendant physical strain that many older persons are saddled with in accessing some of the most basic services.  Perhaps it would help in maximizing the most important luxury that the older person cannot afford to fritter away, time.
The first question that the average policymaker will ask is, of course, how are we going to pay for all of this?  Several, mutually reinforcing options come to my mind.  At a basic, structural level of course would be state funding – there can hardly be any moral argument against increased financing of facilities intended to afford our older citizens, on whose backs this society has been built.  
The next step of funding would be corporate sponsorship of the programme.  Why?  I believe that the private sector would be a key beneficiary of such a system – a healthy, happy older consumer is a far better consumer than one depressed or bed-ridden due to the inadequate provision of services benefiting them
Even beyond that is the fact, as I’ve stated above, that the older person is full of knowledge, the sort of knowledge that can only be gained by experience.  Concurrent with and interlinked with the database of skills as I proposed earlier would be a mechanism designed to reap that knowledge, or put those skills into practice.   There is no need to re-invent the wheel on this mechanism – organizations such as the Canadian Executive Services Overseas (CESO) and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) offer excellent models that help in creating an operational blueprint for such a service.
This could be the foundation for something more advanced but equally more useful when it comes to engaging senior citizens; the retirement community. I see no reason why there can’t be retirement communities established here, particularly considering the recent boom in the local housing projects; we have thousands of Guyanese retirees in countries around the world, whose main wish is to return to Guyana and live out their lives.
As people in the developed world are beginning to find that their dollar is achieving an increasing decline in places where they live, the opportunity is increasing for places such as Guyana – where their money can achieve more – to take advantage.  According to an article published a  few years ago in the Jamaica Observer, “with [retirement community] buy-in prices of up to US$1,400,000 and typical monthly service charges of between US$1,500 to US$4,000, a large proportion of the market in the US is unable to meet domestic price points. This has created a latent demand for high-quality retirement villages with affordable prices, and thus a market opportunity for several countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region.”
Guyana has the basic requirement of retirement communities around the world, namely a relatively stable tropical climate. The retiree coming to Guyana will enjoy the weather, an economy where their developed world pension can afford a life like virtual royalty and where most public health care comes at a fraction of the cost of that of developed countries.  All that’s needed is a few gated, age-restricted communities where certain amenities specific to seniors are established; the latter capable of providing a special one-stop shop that includes services specific to foreign and re-migrant retirees.
In closing, while I first wrote on this issue years ago, I am increasingly convinced that this is an idea which is there for the taking.  As part of an effort to consolidate and develop what is considered some of the more important topics that are dealt with in this column, the Friends of Donald has done research on the issue and will be proposing our ideas in a practical manner to Mr. Ramotar.