Provide separate queue for senior citizens: Collector

Coimbatore: The Coimbatore collector has issued a set of orders meant to ease the troubles faced by elderly people in public places. He has instructed officials to ensure that there are wheel chairs along with ramps in banks, hospitals, post offices and government offices. Collector G S Sameeran had issued the orders after holding a virtual interaction with senior citizens on the problems they face and suggestions to eliminate the hassles. Based on the feedback from the senior citizens, Sameeran also instructed deployment of a staff in all government offices to help elderly people when they visit seeking help.

Government buses should halt wherever elderly people want to board or deboard irrespective of the designated stops

The instructions were sent to the Coimbatore city police commissioner, corporation commissioner, rural superintendent of police, Coimbatore Medical College Hospital dean, project officer of district rural development agency, regional passport office, postal department, BSNL and various other government departments on July 26. According to the order issued by the collector, senior citizens should be given priority in government hospitals and primary health centres during Covid vaccination. Separate queue should be provided for them when they visit the hospitals for treatment. In banks, post office, ration shops, government officers and place of worship too, separate queues should be allowed for senior citizens. 

Besides, halting buses wherever elderly people wanted to board or deboard, the bus crew should ensure that they get a seat during the travel.

Several elderly people representing senior citizen retirement homes including Tapovan, Nana Nani and Covai Care, NGOs like Eeranenjam, Helping Hearts and RAAC participated in the virtual meet moderated by Sreedhar Ramamoorthy, who had launched podcast called Tapovani for senior citizens.
The representatives spoke on a range of topics from the problems they face in government offices, to the need for priority vaccination and preferential treatment, basic infrastructure in senior citizen homes, need for psychological counselling to elderly and mobile labs to conduct medical tests.