Promoting independent living within the community

Maintaining a healthy independent life within one’s own community is a key factor for holistic well-being at older age. Living with your loved ones, remaining active and feeling valued and appreciated for the contributions within one’s community are essen

It is scientifically proven that living within one’s own community enhances the quality of life of older persons

It is the role of Active Ageing and Community Care to provide the necessary tools and services so that we can help old people achieve this aim and continue living in the community.

Two of the main three themes of the National Strategic Policy for Active Ageing Malta 20142020 are centred around promoting independent living and promoting participation in society. We must provide further support to informal carers of older persons while also supporting initiatives that facilitate the creation of age-friendly and dementia-friendly communities and services. Our aim should be to maximise autonomy in longterm care.

One of the services that Active Ageing and Community Care introduced in late 2018 was the Silver-T service in order to enhance access to local services and mobility within the community. The scope of this project is to offer personalised transport to older persons in order to conduct their errands and day-to-day community activities. Through this service, older persons can access health clinics, banks, shops, different services within their own community and fulfil other necessities such as going to church and paying a visit to the cemetery. In this way, the burden of older persons on their relatives and friends is reduced and at the same time older people are able to fulfil their needs independently.

Positive impacts of this service include the promotion of older persons’ well-being, the encouragement of their autonomy and freedom and the strengthening of the social and psychological attributes for healthy living. In fact, it is scientifically proven that living within one’s own community enhances the quality of life of older persons.

Mobility of residents within their own community fosters better socialisation and in turn reduces marginalisation and combats loneliness in older life.

The Silver-T service is granting better access to services within the community so that older persons can remain active, without becoming dependent on other persons. This service also provides physical support to informal carers in maintaining their responsibilities for caring for older persons.

After being launched as a pilot scheme in three communities, namely Żurrieq, Gżira and Mosta, Silver-T has continued to expand to various localities and in 2019 expanded to Rabat, Mtarfa, Baħrija, Burmarrad, Ta’ Xbiex, Msida and Safi. From 7 September the service was further extended to Dingli, Pieta’, Gudja, Tarxien, Paola, Fgura and Santa Luċija. The success that this service has achieved has encouraged us to expand this service to even more localities and in the coming months it is planned that further expansion will take place so that eventually it will be available throughout all Malta and Gozo. Senior citizens can book their appointment for transport two days beforehand by phoning on 2169 5544 or 159. The service operates from Monday to Friday between 7am and 2.15pm.

Another service that is providing social support and enabling older persons to continue living in the community is the Home Help Service. This service provides a helper that performs light domestic duties and small errands for elderly persons aged over 65 years, as well as for persons with special needs. This service is not means-tested and is open to eligible persons irrespective of their level of income or capital assets. Over the years, the service has steadily grown rapidly with over 120 new applications being received every month. This service has undergone a radical reform in the last year with applications being processed in a much shorter time interval, more helpers are being made available to our clients and last January we also launched the scheme where those who are eligible for the service can choose a helper of their own choice for the amount of hours that the Home Help Board decides. In the latter case, government subsidises the helper of one’s choice by paying the elderly client €5.50 per hour of approved service.

Another reform that was enacted was that persons aged 80 years and over and that are living alone are being granted two hours of help per week without the need to wait for the Home Help Assessment Board. This has allowed a reduction in bureaucracy and in waiting times to receive the service. We are now going a step forward. Active Ageing and Community Care is further decreasing the age of automatic approval of two hours of home help from 80 years to 75 years, as long as the clients live on their own. This is another service that will help our elderly clients to continue living independently in their own community and avoid admission to long-term residential care.

From a larger perspective, these services form part of a variety of other services provided by Active Ageing and Community Care, like respite services, carerat-home scheme, night shelter services and many others that continue to enrich the provision of community services in line with the government national policy. Provision of community services is a top priority so that older persons can live within the community as much as possible and without having the need to resort to residential care services.

Translating this paradigm into practice, it is important to look at this issue dynamically and ensure that all needs are being catered for through a continuum of essential and dynamic services. While we can already say that a large spectrum of clinical and non-clinical services are being provided within the community, services of a social nature are still necessary to ensure the holistic well-being of older persons. Active Ageing and Community Care is committed to continue developing such services for the benefit of our old age population living in the community.

Dr Renzo De Gabriele is chief Executive officer at Active Ageing and Community Care