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Putting Sick People First?
The government?s decision to extend the age of retirement to sixty-five years must be seen in its correct perspective. At last, a crying injustice which was being meted out to ordinary civil servants and staff of parastatal bodies is going to be corrected. Previously, only high-ranking officials like presidents, prime ministers, ministers, members of parliament, commissioners, ambassadors, and so on, could stay in office beyond the age of sixty years and continue to earn wages and salaries, overtimes, travel grants, bonuses and all sorts of allowances. Some of them are even paid generous retirement pensions for long and meritorious service and then allowed to occupy office again...
But in order to be able to work up to this new old age, the people must be well fed and their health well taken care of, just like in the highly developed countries we are trying to imitate. At present many workers have to content themselves with their brède mouroum and satini coco, and it is doubtful if this type of diet will take them up to sixty-five years in their active and laborious life.
Mauritius has become a stressed and sick nation as new pharmacies are springing up everywhere. Nowadays Mauritians of all walks of life are fully conscious of sophisticated medication besides the traditional Panadol and sirop toussé, and the list of medicine names that they can recite is impressive. And they know what they are talking about, just like their kith and kin who have settled in those highly developed countries we mentioned earlier. People no longer have the strength to protest against rising prices, and they just go on to find new means to cope with this ever increasing cost of living. No doubt this takes a toll on their health, especially their mental disposition, and for those who cannot afford sophisticated medicines in private pharmacies they just have to content themselves with what the public health institutions have to offer. So high is the demand for free health care, not only from the elderly. Asking a sick nation to work harder for a longer time ? seems as if a new slogan should be coined out, maybe something like Putting Sick People First.
<B>Ayam </B>
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