When their wearied bodies demand rest and care, elderly people in the country's urban slums are instead condemned to toiling in their closing days if they are to eat and survive the day.

Visiting several slums in Narayanganj, the correspondent of the news agency found the elderly people living miserable lives in shanties without healthcare and necessary support.

Jabeda Khatun, in her early 70s, lives alone in Khyshipara Slum in an inhuman condition, although once she had a happy family in Bikrampur.

It was the erosion of the mighty Padma that devastated her family 30 years ago, devouring their homestead and all the belongings. Then Jabeda along with her family took shelter in the slum.

Her husband died 20 years ago, and her only son was killed in a road accident three years back. Jabeda has a sister-in-law, but she is struggling to survive with her four children. So there is no one who could take care of her.

A wretched Jabeda said she had long been suffering from eye problems, but could not afford to consult a doctor. “I have poor eyesight. I cannot see anything clearly…. how will I live?” she asked.

Having no one around, she has been forced into begging for survival.

Noorjahan, another elderly woman, was lying on a mat in a shanty of the slum in unhygienic conditions. “I've nowhere to go, no one to look after me. My only daughter got married three years back and went to Dhaka along with her husband,” she said.

Noorjahan, in early 60s, says people are not willing to give her work as she has got old and is losing working ability day by day.

Shashwatee Biplob, social protection and policy manager of HelpAge International, said Bangladesh was in the phase of a democratic transition when life expectancy was increasing and birth rate was on the decline.

"The share of population above the age of 60 is growing at a rapid rate from 1.9 million (4.4 per cent) in 1951 to 9.4 million (6.6 per cent) in 2007. This number is expected to increase to 14.6 million (about 9 per cent) by 2025", she said, adding that the transition was creating new social protection challenges.

The miseries of elderly people in urban slums are very common in Bangladesh. Although about 33 percent of urban people live in slums, they have access to limited basic facilities.

According to a recent study conducted by Population Research and Development Associates (PRDA), the overwhelming majority (77.8 per cent) of the elderly people suffer from health-related problems in the urban slums.

The major health-related problems of the elderly people in slums are fever (49.7 per cent), pain (36.3 per cent), weakness (21.2 per cent), asthma or breathing complications (14.5 per cent), gastritis or ulcer (13.5 per cent), rheumatism, eye diseases and others.

The PRDA conducted the study titled “Older People in Dhaka Slums: A Socio-Economic Assessment” on 10 slums of Dhaka city from Oct 2010 to Jan 2011.

It found that about 59.2 per cent elderly people got treatment in a pharmacy or dispensary, while about 17.4 per cent sought treatment from public healthcare facilities, 14.7 per cent from private doctors and 7.1 per cent from NGO facilities.

A consultant of PRDA, Naushad Faiz, said some two-thirds of the elderly people in slums were engaged in household works with the percentage of women higher than men.

About 6.5 million people in the country are visually impaired, while 40 per cent of them are elderly, he said.