THE SPENDING PATTERNS OF THE OLD-AGE PENSION BY THE FRAIL ELDERLY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15270/45-3-202Abstract
A specific old-age home in a semi-urban area of South Africa delivers certain communityoutreach services besides the services to the inmates of the old-age home. A team of registered
nurses have been delivering these home-care services since 2002, including physical care, a
meal service and a transport service to clinics and hospitals. The profile of the elderly persons
living in this specific community shows that they are mostly women, black and very poor.
While rendering services to the aged persons in the community, staff members realised that
especially the frail aged have very little finances to spend on their own keeping, although they
all receive an old-age pension. This raised the question of possible neglect and financial abuse
by their caregivers and other people, which in turn led to this specific research project. This
article reports on an attempt to investigate the housing circumstances and the financial position
of the participants, as well as determining whether they could account for their expenditure, the
items that the pension was spent on, the point of payment of the pension, the accompanying
person and the manner in which withdrawal of money took place. Furthermore, the
investigation included whether participants cared for children, topics of interest for
grandparents caring for children, and the physical appearance of participants
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