Responding to increased demand for care

One of the government’s main electoral pledges was to provide small residences in the community for people with disability. As a government, we are well aware of the concerns of the families of those with disabilities as to what will happen when the carer

This week, the Parliamentary Secretariat for Rights of People with Disability and Active Ageing has identified what will be the first of such residences. After a team of experts established what alterations and modifications are required to bring the building up to the required standard, work is now working under way to ensure that those who will ultimately live in the residence will enjoy the best quality of live.

On the subject of such residences, this week my Secretariat also organised a consultative seminar to discuss its draft standards for residences for people with disability. Since the consultation period is due to expire next week, the exercise carried out by our experts on the site identified ensures that it will be in full conformity with these standards. I am very pleased with the response we had about these same standards, which augurs well for the implementation stage.

During the seminar, parents expressed their satisfaction with these standards, with one particular parent saying that he did not want his son to have an inferior quality of life to the one he was used to at home. The session was divided into workshops, the findings of which were analysed by the experts in charge of the whole exercise. It is important to point out that there has never been a set of standards such as these in the disability sector before and now we will also be drafting standards on day centres to ensure quality and uniformity in the services given to those who use their facilities.

This week we also had an opportunity to appraise the performance of the recently established customer care section at St Vincent de Paul Residence. This is proving to be very useful for not only receiving comments from residents, their relatives and the public in general but also for providing information about the residence and the services pro- vided.

I was very pleased to note the statistics provided said this section has a75 per cent success rate and I deemed it more than appropriate to go there in person to acknowledge this remarkable rate of success also a sense of appraisal to our staff.

Despite coming from Gozo, my departments are not responsible for the people of Gozo, as these services fall under the remit of the Gozo Ministry. However, it is an ideal place for investing in services for the elderly. It is a fact that the services provided for older people in Gozo are very inadequate and there is a huge potential for attracting older people from abroad to come to Gozo either to retire or for the winter months. This is a niche worth exploring, considering that tourism is Gozo is seasonal. With its climate, peaceful ambiance and quaintness, Gozo is an ideal and idyllic retirement location.

My Secretariat receives a lot of requests for services in Gozo and this is due to the fact the demand for older people-related services is increasing. For example, in Malta the provision of residential care by the government operates in a different way. There are no public-private partnerships in Gozo, as there are in Malta, and therefore the residential services available to the elderly in Gozo are very limited.

Apart from residential services for older people, we also need to work on more community-based services with the aim of reducing the demand for residential services. This is crucial since our country, along with most of the other countries in the EU, is facing an ageing population, with 25 per cent of our population categorised as elderly. If community-based services are not strengthened, the demand for residential care services for older people will continue increasing dramatically in the years to come, which will place considerable financial strain on the government and on the families themselves.

In fact, only this week we were discussing new services that will be introduced later this year or early next year. The urgency for communitybased services is also affected by the ever-increasing number of dementia cases.

This week has seen the conclusion of the consultation period on the National Dementia Strategy and we are now compiling the actual strategy for implementation. Much has been said about dementia over the last few years but next to nothing has been done about it and we are therefore literally starting from scratch.

We are a very energetic secretariat so we will not be discouraged by the enormity of the problems we are facing each and every day due to the lack of structures and human resources. We are here to deliver and that is what we will do.