The UN Open-ended Working Group on Ageing (OEWG) met from 15 to 18 April 2019. This is a forum for UN member states to promote the protection of the human rights of older people and is based on the evaluation of the existing international framework. During this tenth session, older people’s right to social protection were discussed, among other issues.
Catherine-Elise Dumont, director of the Mexican Association Amigos de los Adultos Mayores, participated in this working group. In her speech, as a representative of the Ibero-American Federation of Associations for Older Adults, she insisted that most elder people do not even have basic groceries to feed themselves, leaving unmet, the needs for health, education, transport, housing and basic services.
“In Mexico, the National Health System has not been able to guarantee the access to comprehensive care for elderly people, who are non-beneficiaries, up to a biopsychosocial level, and much less comprehensive prevention programs that guarantee healthy aging, with moments of leisure.
Indeed, to emphasize the words of Margarita Cruz, from the Center of Social Care for the Health of Adults and Elderly from the Mexican Institute of Social Security, going back to 2016:
“The great problem afflicting old age in our country is loneliness and poverty. There is a very large number of elder adults who lack monthly financial support, and 60 to 70% of those aged 75 suffer from depression, mainly due to loneliness”.
Catherine-Elise Dumont. Fundación Macochoa Abrazar A.C. – Amigos de los Adultos Mayores
