Age comes with privileges for Dubai’s senior citizens

Elderly Emiratis are to get priority at government entities as well as discounts for other services and products as Dubai launches the UAE’s first senior citizens card.

Senior citizen cards entitling them to discounts and priority treatment for government services will be given to the elderly in Dubai. Sammy Dallal for The National

DUBAI // Emiratis in Dubai who are aged 60 or over are to be issued senior citizen cards entitling them to discounts and priority treatment for government services.

Thukher cards will provide special privileges at government bodies, including Dubai Police, Dubai Customs, the Civil Aviation, Dubai Municipality and the General Directorate of Residency and Foreign Affairs.

The cards will also entitle holders to discounts on health services and products including physiotherapy and in-house care.

The initiative by the Community Development Authority aims to make life easier for the emirate’s elderly people. So far 2,000 of the 8,304 registered elderly people in the emirate have been signed up to the scheme, which was launched yesterday to coincide with the UN’s International Day of Older Persons.

Sheikh Mansour bin Mohammed, son of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, the Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, presented the first Thukher card to Khalifa Al Foqai, a ship captain.

Scores of elderly Emiratis attended the ceremony at the Dubai Trade Centre yesterday.

“We think this is a good move. We worked hard and we have now been rewarded. We have our pensions and the government is doing several initiatives such as this to help us,” said Johar Saeed, 75, a retired office helper who lives in Al Muhaisnah.

“But life is getting expensive and what you could buy for Dh100 you cannot get for Dh200,000 nowadays,” he said.

Many agreed that Dubai had changed dramatically and that they often felt like strangers in their own city.

“Things have changed. Before you would walk out of the house and know everyone around you, even people in other neighbourhoods. But today you do not even know your next door neighbour and there are so many people who do not even understand your language,” said Abdullah Abbas, a former mechanic.

Mr Abbas cannot remember his exact age and has no birth certificate but believes he is in his 60s. He says he no longer does much with his days.

“I only stay home or I go to the market, mainly the fish market.”

Malls, he said, were not for him. “What mall? If I go there I feel that I am no longer in the Dubai I know.”

But not everyone was so downbeat about the emirate's development.

Fatima Al Mansouri, better known as Umm Mohammed, said she was happy with Dubai as it is today. "The new Dubai with all its bridges and buildings is very beautiful.

“Things were very primitive in our age and there were only huts.”

She too is unsure of her exact age, but estimates she is in her 60s. She married at the age of 12 and gave birth to 10 children.

Today she is a widow who lives alone in her house in Nad Al Sheba. Her children visit once a week. “Whoever has time comes and see me every Friday.”

She fills her days by making traditional perfumes and scents.

“About eight years ago I dreamt that I was making these scents. The dream featured the process of making them. So when I woke up I decided to take this job on and since then I have been making and selling these products,” she said.

The "Mother of photography" Sheikha Al Suwaidi, who took up the craft when she was 16, agreed that there were many positives to the "new Dubai".

“Things were different in the past,” said Ms Al Suwaidi, who believes she is in her 70s. “Our Dubai was beautiful, but so is this new Dubai, each in its very unique way.”