Dr E V Rapiti, Eastridge

The assault of an elderly, defenceless grandmother by her 19-year-old grandson, depicted in a viral video, is a damning commentary on the fear that parents and grandparents live with daily, in this country.

The elderly have long been the punching bags of our country's aggressive, disrespectful youth.

In a TV broadcast, psychologist Professor Saths Cooper and family therapist Reverend Wonke Buqa emphasised what a violent society we have become. We rank among the top most violent countries in the world for murder, rape and abuse.

The two guests blamed a lack of family values and a lack of parental care for elder abuse, but neither mentioned the role of drugs and alcohol in elder abuse as well as the breakdown of the family, family violence, murder, gangsterism and gender-based violence.

Many families endure daily abuse in this country, but only the few that are captured on video make the headlines.

I have been an ardent advocate for educating children from an early age about the dangers of drugs. I approached the Western Cape Education Department about 15 years ago and the response I received was most discouraging.

I mentioned it to then Premier Hellen Zille on a radio show, and she promised to look into setting up low-cost halfway houses. Nothing came of that. The provincial government then set up drug-support groups using the expensive American-based Matrix programme, which really did not do much to address the problem.

I requested the help of the former health MEC Dr Nomafrench Mbombo and then Social Development MEC Albert Fritz. Both agreed to offer me assistance to spearhead a plan to help substance users and their families.

I presented a plan to deal with drug addiction to the head of provincial health, Dr Keith Cloete. He listened to me rather dispassionately for an hour in his offices and ended the meeting by offering to connect me with someone senior from the Department of Social Services. I never heard from anyone after that meeting.

I ran a support group meeting in Mitchell’s Plain to assist the community to deal with addiction in their homes for over 15 years in the hope of setting up several self-help groups, using my simple four-step programme.

One of the major hurdles we faced was to find suitable venues to hold these meetings. We could not afford to pay schools for the use of their rooms so the schools rented their rooms to church organisations.

The community was too preoccupied with their own issues to give of their time to run these meetings so the only group we ran at Westridge High School had to close down abruptly.

Fortunately, there are a few elderly people still running their own support groups using my programme, but they are not getting the media exposure that they deserve to expand and flourish.

I fear once people get tired of this incident of the young man assaulting his grandmother, everything will be forgotten, which is a great pity because there are simple solutions that we can apply to make a dent in the spiralling problem of drug addiction and all the violence related to it.

It's not an easy problem to solve, but that's not a reason for us not do something about it.

Anyone from the government, law enforcement, the education department, the media and religious organisations who is willing to discuss the solutions with me, is most welcome to contact me.

Society has been crying out for help for a very long time but sadly the cries have been falling on deaf ears for far too long.

• Dr Rapiti is a family doctor practising in Mitchell’s Plain for more than 42 years with a special interest in addiction and addiction counselling. He is the author of the self-help book, 4 Steps 2 Healing.

• Esther Lewis, provincial Department of Social Development spokesperson, responds:

Addressing substance abuse and other social ills requires a whole-of-society approach.

For its part, the Department of Social Development provides and funds several services across the province to assist children, families, and the elderly.

These include five inpatient centres subsidised for a total of 665 service users per annum; 14 organisations that provide both early intervention services across 16 sites and aftercare services across 14 sites; 15 community-based organisations to render a non-residential community-based treatment programme across 25 sites in the province; two organisations to deliver preventative services in rural areas with a focus on foetal alcohol syndrome; six organisations to provide services at identified high-risk schools to ensure service availability in schools where brief interventions can be conducted; and an opiate substitution therapy programme in Mitchell’s Plain and Hanover Park.

The Saartjie Baartman Centre is funded to admit female service users who experience problems with substance use disorders as well as gender-based violence.

The department provides substance abuse treatment programmes at six of its child and youth care centres for children between 12 - 17 years old and 163 community-based service centres around the province for older persons, where the beneficiaries have access to social work professionals and services.

The department has implemented several programmes aimed at youth at risk. In addition, psychosocial, therapeutic, and statutory support services have been provided to children, youth, and adults in conflict with the law.

We would like to emphasise that elder abuse is a crime in South Africa.

We urge families, neighbours and friends who are aware of abuse to report this to SAPS and or the department at the nearest local office or by calling 080 022 0250.

#social-development-department

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