Many senior citizens are turning to retirement communities to ride out the pandemic scare. Older people are more susceptible to the virus, and need help with cooking and housekeeping.
This has led to a surge in demand for assisted living and retirement homes.
Anjali Nair, COO of Asha Senior Living, says the pandemic has increased the acceptance of such communities.
Located in Thiruvananthapuram, her community gets a large number of enquiries from Bengaluru. She was planning to open a centre here before the pandemic broke out.
“Movies and popular culture have painted retirement homes as a place where children ‘dump’ their old parents, but we’ve seen a large number of calls from parents,” she says.
The demand spiked during lockdown 1.0. “We had a lot of frantic calls from people worried about the availability of support systems during this time. The panic has come down but demand remains higher than usual,” he says.
Priaashraya Healthcare, located in Virupakshapura, was thinking of closing its doors when the lockdown was imposed but decided against it after it got calls for help.
“We’ve been getting around two or three enquiries a day. We take people in but only after a medical checkup, consultation with a pulmonologist, and vaccination,” CEO SN Praveen explains.
As a precaution, people who sign up are placed in 14-day quarantine before they can mingle with the others.
With work from home, many professionals are finding it difficult to manage the needs of their parents, and that is one of the reasons for the increased demand, he says. Care homes, assisted living and retirement communities have worked all through the pandemic.
Sreenath, promoter of Sree Senior Living, runs a facility in Pandavapura, 160 km from Bengaluru. “Earlier people were reluctant to take the plunge because it was located away from the city. Now this is the main appeal,” he says.
Enquires have doubled from March, and most are from Bengaluru.
Praveen says many of those calling plan to stay until the situation eases up. “Some came for short stays, and extended their stay because of the uncertainty,” he says.
Health concerns
Most of the staff at Sree Senior Living, Pandavapura, stay at the centre, and only the housekeeping staff come from outside. “We haven’t had health safety worries. Housekeeping staff follow an extensive safety procedure,” says CEO Praveen. Priaashraya, in Virupakshapura, had barred visits from family and others since the beginning of the lockdown.
“We opened it up for a brief time when restrictions were lifted but with the increase in cases we have decided to stick to just video calls,” he says.
Anjali Nair’s centre in Thiruvananthapuram now lets families in after sanitisation.