The saying 'blood is thicker than water' appears meaningless when it comes to looking after one's aged parents as family values are trampled upon by ungrateful children.

Many are dumping their aged parent in the streets, hospitals and welfare homes after seizing whatever property, valuables, cash and EPF savings that the parents had accumulated for their sunset years.

senior citizen 010307 active Also they turn their parent into servants - cooking, looking after the grandchildren, cleaning the house and washing cars.

Failing which they are booted out of their homes with the more unfortunate ones left on the streets to fend for themselves.

The ‘lucky' ones are admitted to hospitals under false pretences and false home addresses so hospital authorities are unable to trace them.

The Penang branch of the Malaysian Hindu Sangam (MHS) deputy chairman P Murugiah, who is also its social and welfare sub-committee chairman, revealed this to Malaysiakini recently.

The association picks up these unfortunate ones from the streets and hospitals and register them with welfare homes.

Wealth, status, agents of destruction

Murugiah quoted a Tamil saying which translates as "Parents love their children, whereas children are stone-hearted".

From he has said it would appear that the lust for material wealth and hyped-up social status is gradually burying family values and extended family ties.

"The social obligation on the part of the children to look after their aged parents is declining sharply these days," he added.

He said parents work their backs off to ensure that their children receive a good education and enjoy the comforts of modern living confident in the belief that they will be looked after in their old age.

All that only to be rewarded with being fleeced out of their personal wealth and robbed of personal dignity by being treated like slaves.

"Parents should not be blinded by the false love staged by the children in parting with their valuables, house and in surrendering their EPF savings.

"They should hold on to these personal effects to ensure that their children look after them in old age,"he said.

He suggested that parents write wills in favour of their children but change them if their offsprings behaviour and attitude are not up to the mark.

Death of filial piety

When they die, the children fail to arrange the funeral which then becomes the responsibility of the MHS to bury or cremate the remains.

Murugiah cited cases where a few months later these children call on the MHS, demanding their parents' death certificates to claim their property, bank accounts and EPF savings.

Malaysiakini spoke to a few female victims of such abuse at the Taiping Old Folks Home in conjunction with 'Mother's Day' celebration which fell on May 9.

That special day for these mothers has been emptied of all meaning as their children celebrated their love for mothers by extracting all their personal properties and valuables before dumping them at this home.

The tale of one 63-year-old Indian inmate (name withheld) stands out with her harrowing experience of suffering at the hands of her last daughter.

The nightmare started for the mother of four (three daughters and a son) when her husband died suddenly.

And too, the inmate's right leg below the knee had to be amputated as an unattended wound had turned gangrenous.

The daughter and pet of the family, turned against her mother. Together with her husband, the daughter coerced her into surrendering all her valuables.

She even forced her mother's thumbprint on to the deed of their home to gain ownership.

That woman's two daughters witnessed their grandmother being tortured.

History will repeat itself

She was thrown out of the house, but before that her granddaughters promised her that they would mete out the same treatment to their mother when they are grown ups to teach her a lesson.

The teary-eyed inmate said: "History will repeat itself and my ungrateful daughter will feel the pain that I suffered at her hands."

Recollecting the events leading to her current situation, she said that after being chased out of the Butterworth home, she took a bus to Kuala Lumpur to locate her elder daughter who was living there.

puduraya bus station 260908 01 Later an Indian policeman found her wandering at the Pudu Raya bus station and took her to a welfare home.

After four months, she was transferred to the Taiping Old Folks Home where she has been spending the past eight years in peace away from her youngest daughter's cruelty.