A 95 years young lady called to ask if I could visit her and pull-up the Care Home Management for the sub-standard food and unprofessional service levels.
What she said really brought out the reality about the lack of Care Home Quality Assurance mechanisms in India.
She said the food is sub-standard and only when the owners visit the Care Home, then only the residents get something special and good quality, which is also rare.
Though she has been staying in an upmarket Care Home in Delhi from the past 15 years and has been paying a substantial monthly fees, but then, she has been complaining about the poor food quality and low service standards from the past few years.
Another point she said was deeply disturbing, she said, since I don’t have any other place to go, hence I am dependent upon the Care Staff and have to silently accept their unprofessional and rude behaviour.
The larger point of debate is, if a well known Care Home in the heart of Delhi, the Capital of India has no systems to check the service level standards then one can imagine what must be the situation in smaller towns and in the hinterlands.
The question here is not whether the food quality is bad or the staff are rude to the residents, the main cause of concern is, who will listen to the grievances and complaints of Elderly residents?
Since there are no systems to check or audit a Care Home for deficiencies in service levels hence it is actually a free for all game. Unfortunately the residents have no say and no-one to compliant to.
It is very concerning to visualise living in a Care Home and at the mercy of the staff while silently accepting whatever little they give and whatever they want to charge.
The sad part is, even with money in old age one is not assured about the service levels and there is no one to regulate them.
Pankaj Mehrotra