This year, YUVA is celebrating its second anniversary with retired, old people of the Hospice Home (Pamplemousses) on 25 December 2016 at 13:00hr.
Why retired, old people?
It is the experience of retired persons that they dedicated their lives to the well-being of society and of the nation. All their lives, whatever their profession, they worked every day and all the time to do some service to society through their field of activity and also in their personal lives. They dedicated their energy, thought, and creativity to support and nourish society and to improve the quality of life in their nation. Then, after so many years of hard work and dedication, society rewards and respects them with retirement. Society says ‘Now you should rest, society will take care of you.’ The rest is well deserved. After a lifetime’s work the body now needs to rest.
But because the whole focus of life and activity was in terms of service to society, it is natural for a retired person to think ‘What can I do now, to be useful to society?’ Society does not expect activity from a retired person, but he still feels that he should do something to make a contribution to society’s welfare. All his life, he worked so many hours a day; now what should he do?
Retired people are concerned about everything that happens in society, on the individual level and on the collective level. They are concerned about all aspects of their nation. If society is not ideal they sit brooding over society’s failure. What else can they do because their bodies are tired and now society wants them to rest and to enjoy their retirement.
Society respects retired people, but when they see things going wrong in the lives of people around them, they feel sad within themselves.
Hospice Saint Jean De Dieu at Pamplemousses
Hospice Saint Jean De Dieu at Pamplemousses on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean is a retirement home for people above 60 years of age. It was started by St. John of God Brothers of the French Province in 1976.
There are 75 beds and all the beds are occupied. Residents are men over 60 years (with a few exceptions).
Among the 75 residents 62 are social security (having as a unique resource the old-age pension of Rs. 3,048 per month) & and 13 are private. In the year 2010 there were 21 new admissions, 16 residents died and 4 residents returned back to their families.
Main diseases of Mauritius are diabetes and hypertension and the residents wear traces: hemiplegic etc.
The sources of revenue for the running of the Hospice are the social security contributions, a few private residents and donations from Mauritian benefactors.
The social security Department of Mauritius Government provides the services of a doctor once in a week for 3 hours, one nurse for two days in a week for 16 hours, one occupational therapist for six hours a week and a physiotherapist for three hours a week.
We, at YUVA, feel blessed and privileged to be celebrating our 2nd anniversary, Xmas 2016 and the end-of-year with these grandpas.
