Elder Abandonment

• Everyday Fernando thinks about how much he misses his family and being home. He is tired of waiting for someone to take him out of the hospital and take care of him in the comfort of his own home.

•  Fernando is an elderly Portuguese man who is currently living in Santa Maria’s Hospital in Lisbon and who made an interview for the Portuguese Channel RTP 1 in 2018. With almost seventy years old and various health problems, he needs someone who can support him. But since this man has nowhere to go, he has no other choice but to stay in the hospital and being taken care of by nurses.
• The reality is that Fernando has a son who lives abroad, in the United Kingdom, but he does not answer the phone when his father calls him. Thus, the elderly man sees himself alone and “imprisoned” in the hospital. The doctors who are responsible for Fernando have been trying to reach his family, but no one answers. He was abandoned by all members of his family.

By making some research, it’s possible to find out that sometimes is not easy for families in Portugal to afford a care home for their elderly relatives.

 Isabel, which is a woman who works in a care home in Torres Vedras (a small city near Lisbon), claims that sometimes is very difficult for people to register his elderly family members in care homes because they are too expensive, and, thus, these people end up in the hospital because they don’t have conditions at home for their health issues either.

• Unfortunately, this is not a rare situation, at least in Portugal: the latest study from the International Labor Organization of Portugal dated 2015 say that Portugal is among the countries of Europe that most abandon the elderly. Furthermore, the World Health Organization places Portugal among the five worst countries in Europe to treat the elderly.

According to an interview made by RTP1 (Portuguese TV Channel) every year dozens of elderly people are abandoned in Portuguese hospitals. The vast majority are hospitalized without clinical judgment waiting for a response, occupying beds that are necessary and costly for taxpayers and, in some cases, the elderly are literally dropped at the hospital door. The worst time is undoubtedly Christmas and holidays – when many older people are left behind at the hospital door or registered with fake addresses and phone numbers.

Forgotten, abandoned or just alone – these are the so-called social cases. In fact, these old people are people who end up in hospitals for no clinical reasons.

“The physical fragility of the elderly makes them easy victims. These are inadmissible cases and it is urgent to punish those who leave the elderly in a situation of dependence on third parties”, says PAN Deputy André Silva, in statements to national television.

“Where am I going to put my father-in-law?”

Ana’s father-in-law, had health problems, but was an autonomous and independent man. A year ago, he suffered a stroke that caused him irreversible brain damage and potentiated his dementia. He was hospitalized for a month, and after this period Ana and her husband were faced with a difficult decision:

“Because of the physical recovery, doctors advised continued care and started talking aloud. We realized that there was a great dependence on my father-in-law and that it would be impossible to take him home, because he would need care that my mother-in-law or even, we could not afford. Even in the hospital, he was tied to his bed for a long time because he became violent and was trying to escape”, says Ana, speaking to RTP1.

The problems were in seemingly simple details. The woman says that her father-in-law needed, for example, a folding bed and that neither his mother-in-law’s house, in old Lisbon buildings, could afford one.

An incessant search for a vacancy in a home or continuing care began. But the results were scarce. Ana says that care homes with poor conditions cost much more than her and her husband’s salaries and in-laws reforms could afford.

“The only home we found with minimally acceptable conditions, where he was until he had a place in continuing care, costed 1600 euros. We used our holiday allowances to pay for this home, because the reforms of my in-laws together were not enough to pay a month,” she says.

These cases are just an example of how elderly people are left in hospitals because their families have no conditions for them. Unfortunately, this reality has increased over the years, not only in Portugal but all over the world.

Sources: https://www.rtp.pt/noticias/pais/portugal-entre-os-paises-com-mais-abandono-de-idosos_v1074336