The MedPoint building is still standing as a bird of ill omen and awaiting to be whitewashed and cleared and a geriatric hospital for the welfare and health of senior citizens of this country set up as is mentioned in all the lawsuits which have beset those who have dared touch it and the saga has not yet ended until the project is realized for the purpose it was acquired for since 8 years now, not to add the interests that could have been earned on the Rs144 million paid for by the taxpayers. 

There are to-day more than 200,000 of the old age generation out of which more than 100 are women centenarians and only some 10 are men. The longevity of women as against men is obvious and the latter are therefore to be looked with increased attention. So far the old age patients are invariably given basic treatment by Area Health Centres under the Non Communicable Disease programme and are referred to general hospitals for further medical treatment requiring admission or as outpatients. 

With an ageing population, more and more funds are therefore to be allocated to the national free health budget in the future in terms of current expenditures and capital projects to cater for the health of the population at large. As far back as 2010, government decided to set up a geriatric hospital and instead of building this new infrastructure, which it has always constructed under its capital budget for decades, it proceeded with the acquisition of the readymade MedPoint clinic to house the geriatric institution for specialized old age care and treatment on a national scale just as the existing Eye, Ear Nose Throat, Orthopaedic Centres and General Hospitals for any medical care. 

A well-known private clinic has a geriatric medical unit for both in and outpatients and there are medical specialists in this dedicated field too for consultations as old ageing requires a holistic and multi-disciplinary approach to provide the best possible preventive care and treatment in the olden days of a generation who has toiled in fields, worked in factories, and offices in both the private and public sectors and including ex-Presidents and Prime ministers of the National Assembly and sitting old age Members for what the country has become today. 

Will this project be implemented by the present or next government? The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has even mentioned in the case facts JCPC 2018/0030 that MedPoint was meant for a geriatric hospital. Now that the case has been classified, the Director of Audit will no doubt mention it in an annual report on the project. 

Can this Appeal for the setting up of a Geriatric cum Gerontology hospital be heard without costs?