In Karnataka, trend of children abandoning aged parents in hospitals compels government to step in

Shalmala Dharwadkar had been suffering from stomach ache for some time. During a recent meeting, BIMS Director Ashok Kumar Shetty informed Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil that as many as 152 men and women have been abandoned by their children and relatives in two years. If we do not send back cured patients, we will not have space to admit new patients,” said a doctor in-charge of the teaching hospital. We are trying to trace them.” Doctors say that the old people are left at the hospital by their relatives either after they sign property papers or during their stay in the hospital. Sections 23 and of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, give the power to the transferer to take back property or maintenance out of an estate, from their children or kin.” An officer at the Directorate of Medical Education said that the Minister has instructed all government hospital directors to file a complaint with the Revenue Assistant Commissioners asking them to cancel the property transferred by the abandoned parents to their children.