Association of Medical Doctors of ASIA, founded in 1984, Consultative Status with UN ECOSOC since 1995

Ms. Vedha, a former staff at AMDA Peace Clinic in Bodhgaya, India, has been running a nursing home at Sripur village located on the outskirts of the city. It has been some time since AMDA started offering constant support to the facility through efforts such as food assistance and water-well construction projects.

The local economy was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic which wreaked havoc on the tourism sector in the last two years. Likewise, the nursing home suffered a great loss in the number of donations it received. This forced the facility to occasionally rely on food distribution drives carried out by various aid organizations and temples. Considering such circumstances, AMDA began providing financial assistance to the nursing home for six months beginning in January 2022.

Between the months of January and March, the facility welcomed three more people to join its 15 residents who were either old or had physical or mental disabilities. The number once totaled 18, but it got back to 15 again at the end of March after losing three people: one in January and two in February.

In India where an extended family is a common family structure, it is usually the eldest son’s family that takes care of elderly parents by living in the same domestic dwelling. However, some impoverished seniors have no choice but to live on the streets or seek shelter in temples and other religious facilities. This stems from the fact that there aren’t as many elderly care facilities as possible, unlike in developed countries, besides the prevalence of a significant wealth gap.

Ms. Vedha’s nursing home was established to accept those who have no one to tend to and is run entirely on individual and organizational donations. The facility became known mostly through word-of-mouth, and now it receives calls from local police and university hospitals whenever there is an elderly person in need of assistance. Ms. Vedha always takes an auto-rickshaw to pick up the prospective residents, brings them back to the nursing home, and takes care of them until their last moments. All that while, living costs, medical bills, funeral fees, and all other expenses will be covered by the facility.

In appreciation of AMDA’s support, Ms. Vedha said: “I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude and respect to all AMDA’s supporters that have allowed us to maintain our work. It has been such a difficult time for us in sourcing our funds, but thanks to your support, we have been able to continue providing food and medicine to our senior residents.”

The residents also said how thankful they were for having been saved from living on the streets, and that they could eat hot meals every day and spend a good time with the friends they made at the facility.