A fter breakfast on a Friday morning, a small group of elderly people are engaging in gentle exercises β walking to one end of a walled compound and back. Some of them need the assistance of nurses or walkers, or both, to complete the journey. At the turn of the century, a facility like this would have been hard to imagine in Ghana.
But improvements in public health and advances in medicine have ment that life expectancy has increased from 54 years in to 63 years in Traditionally, elderly relatives stayed at home to help raise grandchildren and, as they aged, they were in turn cared for by those younger family members. But Ghana, now a middle-income country , has an expanding middle class. The total fertility rate in Ghana has almost halved from 6. The pace of urban life, the demands of education and work means that many families are struggling to care for their elderly relatives.
Already, there are three care homes in operation and two more are under construction around Accra. During her time working as a nurse, Asomani found that many elderly patients did not want to go home after being discharged from hospital. I am always lonely. It was only after the care home switched their adverts from a local language radio station to an English language station popular with educated professionals that the business started to look up.
Today, there are seven residents aged between 70 and The home can accommodate up to 10 people, says Mensah. The home has a structured daily routine, with nurses on hand to help with medication, hospital visits and other assisted living services such as grooming.
Family visits usually happen at the weekend and there are occasional excursions. When you come here, you stay as if you are in your house. However, the main challenge is confronting societal perceptions about care homes. One thing nearly all of the residents have in common is that they have previously lived, or their children currently live, in the west.
