What The Hell: Omanis are throwing their folks into housing homes?

This is exactly what's happening under our very noses.

I wonder if any of you are actually doing it, or even - under any excuse; justified or otherwise - then shame on you.

Reported by the Gulf News:

The elderly are being forced to live a lonely life as an unfortunate impact of rapid urbanisation - thus the government is gearing up to take care of the ageing population, said Barka Al Bakry, an Omani social worker.

Furthermore:

"The Health Ministry is gearing up for such an eventuality because a lot of children drop their elderly parents or relatives at hospital and eventually abandon them," Al Bakry told Gulf News.

She said that in the past Omani families took care of their extended family.

"Unfortunately, now the increasing needs of an individual is gradually tearing society's fabric. People want to buy luxury cars or go on holidays and thus have little time for elderly people."

Are you people getting this? You have all the luxury of the world at your fingertips, and yet you still have no time for your parents?

It must because you hang out with your friends so much, or can't take care of them because of the big new business idea that's flourishing away. This is, in my opinion, one of the many disadvantages of the development process, we want to have this and leave the rest. Moving from rural to urban cities leaves those places unprocessed and underdeveloped. Our poor parents have it worse - by getting a bite in the ass - that's how.

And what's more worse, the government is stepping in to accommodate to those needs.

"The aims of such services are to support older people and their families in maintaining an independent lifestyle in the familiar surrounding of their communities," he said.

He added the ministry had already taken several initiatives in relation to elderly citizens.

"A home for elderly people has been set up in Nizwa with the collaboration of the Ministry of Social Development," he said.

He said another home health care project had been doing very well since 2004 in the Al Amerat area of Muscat.

I do not for one accept such an adoption legal because the government is taking a responsibility that is supposed to be on the shoulders of the children that be damned for leaving them at such places. I would it unlawful to do so, too. After all, is this what we Omanis were taught by our traditions? By our religion? Is this what Islam taught us to do in taking care of the elderly?

I am astonished. Absolutely dumbfounded.