Dr Folashade Oluwole, a Senior Registrar at the Nephrology and Geriatrics Unit, Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, Sagamu, has advocated for the passage of an Elders Rights Act by the National Assembly to cater for the aged.
She made the call in a lecture on “Active and Healthy Ageing” delivered in Abeokuta in commemoration of the 54th birthday anniversary? Gov. Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun.
Oluwole urged the Federal Government to facilitate the passage of the Act, ‘because most of the senior citizens have suffered untold hardship as a result of old age''.
“If animals can have their own rights in some countries, how much more human beings.” Therefore, she said it had become imperative for the proposed bill to be passed into law to ensure adequate protection of the rights of senior citizens.
Oluwole also called for a periodic review of the nation's pension laws to be commensurate with the inflation rate in the country.
She advised the senior citizens to always ensure periodic check of their blood pressure and their blood sugar level.
Oluwole identified some of the diseases that were associated with old age as arthritis, stroke, romanticism and insomnia, stressing that eating right, exercising and taking adequate rest would elongate lives.
She urged bank owners to provide seats in banking halls, to provide some level of comfort for the elderly while carrying out financial transactions.?