While in Lanzarote and La Graciosa we are expectantly awaiting the construction of a macro residence that increases the number of residential places for our elders, other Autonomous Communities and States are advancing towards quality, personalized care that offers dignity and integral well-being.
Since 2006, with the well-known Dependency Law, the figure of personal assistants has been promoted, and in 2019 the Social Services Law of the Canary Islands comes into force, which includes the intention of offering the best possible services so that our elders remain in their vital environment for the maximum time and with the best care.
And I wonder, what has been done from Lanzarote to promote other alternative care models to macro residences? If we asked our elders how and where they want to live their last years, what would they answer? Probably the elderly population wants to be in their home, with their memories, in a known and familiar environment. If this were not possible, they would probably choose other smaller and more individual alternative accommodation models.
What they would in no case choose are the residences that most public officials who have no idea about dependency policies are betting on. These politicians and policies use advertising shortcuts to make it seem that they are in favor of caring for the elderly, but without bothering to minimally study the most appropriate model to care for them. Making decisions requires studying alternative models, contrasting them, evaluating them, and, in the case of making a decision, explaining them. It is no small thing to intern a person in a residence, since in a way you are depriving them of a part of their life.
On this island, where are the personal assistance services? (which is not, by far, the simple Home Help Service); where are the sheltered apartments for those elders who still retain certain faculties and do not need health care that requires them to be admitted to a residence?; where are those alternative models such as cohousing, family foster care for the elderly, sharing housing with students, for example, of university degrees such as nursing? They are simply not there because the current political class is incapable of imagining an alternative horizon to the current one. There is no study, nor desire to innovate.
I do not doubt that Lanzarote and the Canary Islands will need more residential places in a short period of time. What I consider is that we need a change in the vision of care that does not make us hostages of whether an installation is built or not, or whether the awarding company is not solvent to provide the services. Because this is another thing, the macro residences are built with public money, but their management is tendered for private companies to manage. All very normal.
The different public administrations of the island can and should move towards a comprehensive care model centered on people. Because our elders deserve to remain in their home until the end. They deserve the best individualized care. They deserve that we respect their wishes for, even, a dignified death.
Politics and public management cannot be insensitive to the feeling and emotionality of people. Decisions should be made taking into account the integral well-being of our people. This well-being will always be better in their home than in a cold and distant building, don't you think?
Daisy Villalba, Social Worker and member of the Local Committee of NC Teguise.