Delia: Homes for the elderly should be combined with childcare centres

Nationalist Party leadership contender Adrian Delia has outlined a set of proposals for the country’s pensioners to be able to live in “dignity” and to avoid situations where they are dependent on others for their livelihood.

“I believe in life from conception to death, and I also believe in people living their life with dignity,” he said.

In addition to building a society which provided each individual with equal opportunities, and access to the resources needed to fulfil their potential, Delia said that there was also a need to address the transition from a working life to retirement.

He stressed that pensioners had considerable life-experience, as well as a lot of free time – scarce resource in today’s society - which could be used to help raise children.

Delia said that “experiments abroad” had shown that this could be achieved by combining homes for the elderly with childcare centres, resulted in elderly people remaining more active, while children enjoyed their time away from home more.

Moreover, Delia said that it society should also consider a period of time where pensioners were given the opportunity to work on a reduced-hours basis immediately after they retire so as to not lead to a situation where people go from working all day to finding themselves with nothing to do.

He also spoke of the need of reinforcing community respite services, and allowing the elderly to have locations they can meet within their community, as well as offering more support to families who want to support their elderly.  

“It’s not only about knowing how many beds we need for the elderly, but also about how we can keep them in our society,” he said. “They have a role to play in society and it would be better for all of us if they remained active.”