Geita — THE government has issued medical Identity Cards (ID) cards to 585,600 needy elders as part of implementation of the plan for better health services for such a special group.

The Minister for Social Development, Gender, Women and Special Groups, Dr Dorothy Gwajima revealed the statistics recently, during the World Elders Day celebrations held in Geita Region.

Dr Gwajima said the number of elders whom were issued with medical ID cards is about 26.1 per cent of the 2.1 million elders identified in the 26 regions of Tanzania, among them 1.3 million are males and 735,129 are females.

He said the figures are according to the programme for elderly identification implemented from July 2022 to June 2023.

The programme is in progress, targeting to reach all the elderly people and those who are proven to be not able to afford costs of medical services for provision of medical ID.

Dr Gwajima urged the elderly who have not yet been identified so far to communicate with the elders' councils in their areas so that they can be identified by the government and be helped in accordance with the government's policy.

On behalf of the Geita Regional commissioner, Geita District Commissioner Cornel Magembe assured the Minister that the Geita Region has planned to manage and effectively implement the policy on special groups including the elderly.

The representative of the Parliamentary Committee on Social Welfare and Development, who is also legislator for Bunda, Mr Boniface Getere, called for law amendment to compel employees to provide a percentage of their salaries to their parents because some were being abandoned.