One senior citizen’s wish

TOMORROW is World Senior Citizens Day, a day intended to increase awareness of the issues that affect older adults.

There are, of course, many issues, including dealing with the deterioration in health that comes with ageing, maintaining dignified accessibility to public services, and ensuring we don’t become invisible.

Of late, keeping pace with the digital age is something older folk have to address – and I’m sure I speak for many ageing Malaysians when I say that we would like to be able to go to a bank/hospital/government department/business to attend to chores without any stress and hassle, and to be treated with respect and dignity.

In the case of banks, while some do set aside counters for senior citizens (as well as pregnant women and the disabled), what we want is to be able to attend to basic needs in a trusted way that we are familiar with. Forcing seniors to conduct all transactions digitally causes a lot of hardship, with some being scammed because they are not digitally savvy.

One bank requires scanning a QR code to see the teller; I once went on a merry-go-round trying this QR code thing, and ended up losing a sum of money due to some steps that I got wrong.

Nowadays we don’t see that many customers physically on banks’ premises, so surely the banks could afford to reserve a counter for senior citizens that allows us time to do things in a way we are familiar with?

Senior Citizens Day is meant to recognise the contributions seniors made to society. Surely hassle-free services is not too much to ask for?

THIAGAN MATHIAPARANAM

Klang