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One way to handle the elderly

11/16/2013

4 Comments

 
Picture
Here's one way to handle the problem of an aging population in an era of skyrocketing healthcare costs. Leave it to the Germans to figure out a cost-efficient solution. (This is from the UK's Daily Mail -- as far as I know, the US media have yet to report this story, now almost a year old. I wonder why.)

Germany accused of 'deporting'
its elderly:
Rising numbers moved to Asia and  Eastern Europe because of sky-high care costs 
  
  • Country's elderly and sick being sent abroad  due to rising care costs
  • Situation described as 'inhumane deportation' and a huge 'alarm signal'
  • Warning to Britain where pensioners are  selling homes to pay for healthcare
     
German pensioners are being sent to care  homes in Eastern Europe and Asia in what has been described as an ‘inhumane  deportation’.

Rising numbers of the elderly and sick are  moved overseas for long-term care because of sky-high costs at home.

Some private healthcare providers are even  building homes overseas, while state insurers are also investigating whether  they can care for their clients abroad.

Experts describe a time bomb’ of increasing  numbers unable to afford the growing costs of retirement homes.  
 
Inhumane: Rising numbers of Germany's elderly and sick are being sent to care homes in Eastern Europe and Asia because of rising care home costs.

And they say the situation should be a  warning to Britain, where rising numbers of pensioners are forced to sell their  homes to pay for care.

The Sozialverband Deutschland (VdK), a  socio-political advisory group, said the fact that many Germans were unable to  afford the costs of a retirement home in their own country was a huge ‘alarm signal’.

‘We simply cannot let those people, who built  Germany up to be what it is, be deported,’ VdK’s president Ulrike Mascher told  The Guardian. ‘It is inhumane.’  
 
Researchers found an estimated 7,146 German  pensioners living in retirement homes in Hungary in 2011. 

More than 3,000 were in the Czech Republic  and more than 600 in Slovakia. There were also unknown numbers in Spain, Greece  and the Ukraine, as well as Thailand and the Philippines.

Some told researchers they were there out of  choice as costs were lower, while standards of care were often higher. 

But many others admitted they moved reluctantly.  
 
According to Germany’s federal bureau of  statistics, more than 400,000 senior citizens cannot afford a German retirement  home, a figure growing by around 5 per cent a year. This is because many are living for longer while their pensions are stagnating.

As a result, the Krankenkassen – or statutory  insurers that make up Germany’s state insurance system – are discussing cheaper  care in foreign retirement homes.

EU law prevents state insurers from signing  contracts with overseas homes.

But that is likely to change as legislators  are forced to respond to Europe’s aging population.

Artur Frank, the owner of Senior Palace – which finds care homes for Germans in Slovakia – said it was wrong to suggest  senior citizens were being ‘deported’.

‘Many are here of their own free will, the  results of sensible decisions by their families who know they will be better  off,’ he said.

4 Comments
Jeanne
11/17/2013 02:37:21 am

Whew! Scary stuff. We're 'elderly' ourselves and really would like to live with our children...in a separate space, of course. We believe that is the right solution. Presently we reside in a lovely retirement community...but the future of those will be in jeopardy with the way the funding is headed.

Reply
Kitty Foth-Regner link
11/17/2013 04:43:14 am

The nursing home where I hang out is so nice, and staffed by so many loving people, that I'd be happy to live there. But you're right about funding. Apparently that's the reason the Brits are shutting down nursing homes these days -- maybe they're sending their sick old people to the same places the Germans are using. Preferable to the Dutch euthanizing the elderly, of course. And to think that we Americans want to be just like the Europeans.

Reply
Cooking with Alex link
12/19/2020 09:15:38 am

Hi nice rreading your post

Reply
Body Rubs Saguenay link
12/27/2024 07:40:59 pm

Good reading this postt

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Kitty
    Foth-Regner

    I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, a freelance copywriter, a nursing-home volunteer, and the author of books both in-process and published -- including
    Heaven Without Her.

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