Tata's senior suport

When a 65-year-old Yavatmal (Maharashtra) resident missed a train back home from Hyderabad and was found alone, wandering about the city and later ill and hospitalized, the local police called the Elder Spring Connect Centre for assistance. Founded and supported by the Tata Trusts, their goal is to "guide, assist and counsel senior citizens of Hyderabad.” The Centre’s officers liaised with the police and the hospital authorities and had the person lodged in the facility of a partner organization, the Good Samaritans. A family member, contacted by the Centre’s field officer, came to Hyderabad to take the senior citizen back to Yavatmal, 400 km away.

Being progressively operational since April 2019, the Centre can be contacted by senior citizens or their care givers via a toll-free number — 14567 — between 9.30 a.m. and 5.30 p.m., seven days a week. Writing in response to Parsiana’s questions, Bob John, the Trusts’ public relations contact told us that the Centre has received 3,234 calls till November 6. About 45% of these were enquiries about the program; other calls were requests for rescue of the abandoned, legal guidance, information on pension schemes and old age homes in the city, based on statistics that John shared with us. There are no plans at the moment to start this service outside of Hyderabad, he said.
Another case that John detailed may not have had a happy ending. The rescued elderly person passed away after a couple of days at an old age home. "The silver lining though is that based on this incident, the response team was able to design a structured rescue operations program for the elderly in Hyderabad,” noted the case study shared by John. The program now is able to "fast track approval processes of the police” in case of abandoned elderly folk.
As notes a press release on the website of the Trusts, the Elder Spring platform is being implemented in Hyderabad and outlying areas "under a memorandum of understanding between the government of Telangana’s department of senior citizens and Vijayavahini Charitable Foundations (VCF), supported by the Trusts.” Other partners include the police and health departments, the district administration and other civil society organizations. "These (entities) bring in their core expertise to seamlessly drive service delivery through Elder Spring,” noted the press release. Abhishek Poduri, the Trusts’ zonal head — South, and director, VCF noted, "Tata Trusts aim to play a transformational role in the geriatric care segment by focusing on critical gap areas and creating an empathetic ecosystem.”