Ageing and long-term care

AGEING has been put on the back burner, because the present focus in the country is on youth unemployment, says Anne CabotAlletzhauser, the head of research at Alexander Forbes.

“Although South Africa doesn’t have an immediate ageing problem, particularly compared with developed economies, projections suggest that the percentage of our population over 65 will triple to 15.52% in 2060,” she says (see graph).

“The real crisis South Africa faces,” Cabot-Alletzhauser says, “is not about ageing as such, but whether we have an adequate and cost-effective way to provide long-term care for those who no longer have access to family caregivers, whose care may be beyond the capabilities of family members, or whose families can no longer afford to fund that care.”

At a workshop in March, hosted by Professor Jaco Hoffman of NorthWest University in collaboration with Alexander Forbes and the Gauteng Department of Social Development, a community-based solution was proposed:

Create a model of in-place community caregiving that recognises that the home or community is the best place for caring for older people.

Train young people as caregivers.

Provide community caregivers with monitoring technology with remote links to doctors and hospitals.

Create affordable frail-care facilities through hybrid private-NGO models that allow the sale of liferights homes to wealthy retirees, to subsidise lower-cost solutions.

Stimulate entrepreneurship in caregiving and related services.

Involve older community members who are still healthy, who could take care of the infirm in return for being cared for when they themselves become unwell.

Fund these projects through impact investment vehicles that could be accessed by pension funds, with possible “usage rights” being conferred on pension fund members.

Promote a new breed of asset manager that would specialise in and develop this form of impact investing.