Pandemic exhibits want for brand spanking new mannequin of take care of aged, academy says – Catholic San Francisco

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Athens, Greece on December 22, 2020, an elderly woman crosses a plaza to receive a free lunch from community social services. The Pontifical Academy for Life has published a document on the future after the pandemic for the elders. (CNS photo / Costas Baltas, Reuters)

February 9, 2021
Carol Glatz
Catholic intelligence service

VATICAN CITY – A new attitude and approach to the elderly is needed in today’s world, especially in the places and ways they are cared for as they become more fragile, said the Pontifical Academy for Life.

To ensure that the needs of older people are met and their gifts are valued, it is necessary to reconsider and find new solutions for assisted living facilities, architectural barriers, friendships and social support networks, home carers, families and younger family members, and assisted living opportunities. said the academy in a new document.

The 11-page “Note” published on February 9, is entitled “Old Age: Our Future. Older People Post-Pandemic” and was made available in six languages ​​on akademyforlife.va.

It provides a reflection on the importance of older people and the challenges the older generation faces and will face given the World Health Organization estimate that the world will have 2 billion people over 60 by 2050, i.e. one of them all five people in the world.

The Academy also appealed to all facets of society, including families, health care providers, city administrators, and local communities, to be more attentive to and inclusive of the elderly, and to review and rebuild the ways in which they welcome and care for people in their fragility .

During an online press conference where the document was unveiled on February 9, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the academy, said the COVID-19 pandemic had exposed chronic, fundamental problems in caring for the elderly.

“On every continent, the pandemic has mostly affected the elderly,” he said, citing estimates that more than 2.3 million elderly people have died of COVID-19, most of whom were over 75 years old.

The pandemic “was a real massacre of the elderly, and most of them died in facilities for the elderly,” he said.

“Serious rethinking is required not only with respect to senior residences, but also for the entire care system for the numerous elderly people who characterize all societies today,” he said.

Faced with a warning from Pope Francis that the world will either come out better or worse out of the pandemic, the Archbishop said that “how we begin building our future today is up to us”.

The document, which focuses on building a new future for the elderly, was the fourth to be released by the academy on the pandemic, and two more are in the works: one on children and one on the disabled, he said.

Msgr. Bruno-Marie Duffe, Secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said at the press conference that the pandemic “has brought to light an important part of social relationships”.

“The ability to face life’s challenges – its strangers and its joys – is based in part on the inspiration of intergenerational dialogue,” in which they come together and encourage one another and share their dreams, wisdom and tenderness, he said.

Etsuo Akiba, an academician and professor at the University of Toyama, Japan, said 98% of the people in Japan who have died from COVID-19 were people who were 60 years old and older.

At the conference from Japan, she described the serious social and psychological difficulties that young people, especially students, face in urban settings. They face intense competition, bullying and seclusion, and the elderly often live far away in suburbs where many of them fear they will not be able to fend for themselves, she said.

However, she said Toyama Prefecture has tried to reject this generation separation and create a “regional mutual aid community”.

For example, she said, they are promoting the “Compact City Project” in collaboration with the university and landscaping.

They also have the Toyama Day Care System, which has become a national project where the elderly and children with disabilities live together in a traditional Japanese home designed for three generations, surrounded by nature and by family members and carers is supported. She said.

“The current world war against COVID-19 is a rare chance for us to escape the withdrawn mentality of an island country and get the cosmopolitan perspective,” which is healthier and more intergenerational, she added.

The most important points in the Academy’s document include:

– The duty to create the best conditions for older people to live “at home with lifelong friends if possible” and with the provision of basic services in their own neighborhood.

– Housing should adapt to changing needs, including removing architectural barriers and providing integrated, quality home health care.

– New technologies and advances in telemedicine and artificial intelligence should be used responsibly so that elderly people can receive support in the home environment.

– Independent living, assisted living, cohabitation and other initiatives should be inspired by an attitude of mutual support that enables older people to be autonomous in a community and ideally between generations.

– Nursing homes should be converted to provide medical services directly to retirement homes, and families should be given the support they need to take care of a loved one at home.

– Dioceses, parishes and church communities should promote “a more caring pastoral relationship with the elderly” and regard them as a “great resource”, particularly in faith formation and as living witnesses of the faith.

“This vision is not an abstract utopian or naive pretext. Instead, it can bring to life and nourish new and smarter health policies and original proposals for a welfare system for the elderly,” the press release said.

“This requires an ethic of the common good and the principle of respect for the dignity of every individual” and the help of everyone – the Church as a whole, different religions, the world of culture, schools, volunteers, media companies and businesses – support of a “Copernican Revolution “that enables older people to stay in the homes they know or in welcoming, loving surroundings.