News:
July 3, 2018
Minister for Gender Children and Social Protection, Otiko Afisa Djaba has appealed to Members of Parliament (MPs) to put in all effort to help work on the Ageing Bill to be passed into law.
She further urged MPs to celebrate the aged in their various constituencies when she made a statement on the floor of the House, making the celebration of the senior citizens day.
Mr. Speaker, Government through my Ministry is adopting polices and strategies to deal with the needs of the aged, she said.
The Ministry is in the process of ensuring that all the ten Regions in Ghana have day recreational centers for the aged, to enable them interact with each other as well as the younger generation. This would enable them share their experience with the younger generation.
Plans are far advanced for the introduction of “Freedom Pass” for the aged, to gain priority access to social services by service providers such as, transport operators, banks, hospitals and other services the elderly might require, she stated.
The Ministry through LEAP would collaborate with the Ghana National Health Insurance Authority to register eighty-two thousand one hundred and eighty-nine (82,189) elderly persons who are sixty-five and above onto the NHI scheme across the country.
On the aging population in Ghana, the Minister noted that the elderly in the country had increased by more than seven-fold since the 1960 census, rising from 213, 477 in 1960 to one million six hundred and forty-three thousand, three hundred and eighty-one persons in 2010.
Mr. Speaker, however there seem to be more negative perceptions about older people that tend to exclude them from performing certain functions in the society.
By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com