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ocial Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa has said that some 1.8 million elderly people in Indonesia were neglected and needed extra attention.

“The Social Affairs Ministry has recorded that 1.8 million seniors are neglected across the board [throughout Indonesia],” she said at the opening ceremony of Trimulyo II elementary school and the renovation of uninhabitable houses in Semarang, Central Java, on Saturday, as quoted by Antara news agency.

Khofifah explained that recently during the Seniors Day celebration in Madura, East Java, of 350 elderly people who attended the event, 157 were more than 100 years old.

She found that many elderly people in that place were living in uninhabitable houses, which required government attention.

Thus, the government plans to implement more programs to improve the quality of housing with regard to the health, safety and comfort of elderly people.

Besides the government’s program, collaboration among many different institutions was also needed, she added.

Previously, the ministry implemented a similar program to rehabilitate 27,000 units of unfit housing.