The Quality of Public Elderly Care
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The Quality of Public Elderly Care Comparative Analysis in the Municipality of Varena Nord+ Geonordbalt Lithuania 3rd of May 2018 Anni Kaup Emilija Rimaitė Karol Piotr Matusiewicz Matthildur Ármannsdóttir Abstract In this paper, we will undertake the difficult task of researching how the public institutions in the Lithuanian municipality of Varena correspond with the expectations and the needs of the elderly. We will attempt to analyze the situation in different institutions and compare the attitude of different actors towards the complex and relatively new issue of the ageing society. In this paper we will use qualitative methods in the form of semi-structured interviews which we have conducted both in the elderly homes and with the representatives of local authorities. We hope, that our work will provide deeper insight into the issue of the ageing population, how to address it, and what can be done, in order to provide necessary care for the elderly. In our paper, we want to analyze the so-called “silver economy” phenomena considering various factors it consists of. We will try to compare both public care homes, and find similarities and differences. We will attempt to find out what the issues are and how are they being dealt with. We will also look closely on how the social relations look like both inside the care homes, and also how it is connected to the outside world. We will try to draw conclusions based on our observations, and shortly discuss them. Next, we will try to answer how the future of these public institutions might look like. Next, we will focus on the perspective of the authority, how is it managing to reach people’s expectations in regard to the care homes, what is the policy towards elderly people, and how can the authority improve it. Then, based on our own observations, we will try to analyze the perspective of the authority. 2 Table of Contents – Images and Tables Figure 1. Varena district ............................................................................................................. 7 Figure 2. The population of Varena district 2013-2017 ............................................................. 8 Figure 3. Population by age group in Varena municipality ....................................................... 8 Table 1. Varena’s care home budget ........................................................................................ 14 Table 2. Merkine’s care home budget ...................................................................................... 15 3 Table of Contents 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 5 2 Theory ..................................................................................................................................... 6 2.1 Varena ............................................................................................................................... 6 2.2 Silver Economy ................................................................................................................ 8 2.3 Social services .................................................................................................................. 8 2.4 Elderly care ....................................................................................................................... 9 3 Methodology and Data Analysis ........................................................................................... 11 3.1 Comparison Between Two Public Care Homes ............................................................. 11 3.1.1 Problems .................................................................................................................. 12 3.1.2 Workers .................................................................................................................... 12 3.1.3 Costs ......................................................................................................................... 13 3.1.4 Contact with community .......................................................................................... 15 3.1.5 Future ....................................................................................................................... 15 3.1.6 Discussion and observation ...................................................................................... 15 3.2 Perspective of the authority ............................................................................................ 17 3.2.1 Strategy and future ................................................................................................... 17 3.2.2 Problems and solutions in Varena ............................................................................ 18 3.2.3 Contact with the community .................................................................................... 18 3.3 The Social Services Center ............................................................................................. 19 3.3.1 Social workers .......................................................................................................... 19 3.3.2 Demand for care ....................................................................................................... 19 3.3.3 Financial help from municipality ............................................................................. 20 3.3.4 Care home funds ...................................................................................................... 20 3.3.5 Future ....................................................................................................................... 20 3.3.6 Enjoyment of the work ............................................................................................. 21 3.3.7 Problems .................................................................................................................. 21 3.3.8 Government Action .................................................................................................. 21 3.3.9 Discussion and observation ...................................................................................... 22 4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 23 5 Resources .............................................................................................................................. 24 4 1 Introduction Lithuania is a Baltic state, located in Northeastern Europe. The country borders with Russia (Kaliningrad oblast) to the west, Poland to the Southwest, Belarus to the East, and Latvia to the North. According to the World Bank, Lithuania’s population was estimated to be 2.868.231 people (The World Bank, 2016). The majority of the population is Lithuanian, however it is inhabited by many minorities that have immigrated to the country. By the estimate of the world bank, the country’s total GDP was 42,733 billion US dollars (The World Bank, 2016), making it the 24th economy in the European Union (Eurostat, 2017). “According to the latest 2011 Population and Housing Census of the Republic of Lithuania, the country was inhabited by people of 154 ethnicities. Lithuanians made up 84,2%, Poles – 6,6%, Russians – 5,8%, Belorussians – 1,2%, Ukrainians – 0,5% of the resident population; residents of other ethnicities accounted for 0,6%” (Jolanta Pivoriene, 2016). In Lithuania, the unemployment rate measures the number of people actively looking for a job as a percentage of the labour force. The average unemployment rate in Lithuania is 8.1%. Since 2018 January an unemployment rate started to increasing to 9.1%. As compared to Varena’s municipality where the unemployment rate is about 10%. Another problem that Lithuania faces is that one third of Lithuania’s population are retired people. It is alarming because the economy, and the social system are getting to a stagnation point where supply doesn’t meet demand. So, for the purpose of this research the question is: • What is the best model of elderly care considering both the perspective of the people and the government? In the eyes of outsiders Varena looked depopulated at first glance. That turned out to be the situation almost throughout our 4 days of field work. The city had a very calm atmosphere, even in times where the most people were out in the streets. There were barely any encounters with locals but those we noticed were either young males, gathered in rather large groups, doing nothing but listening to music or old people wandering alone in the city. The young guys seemed 5 rather annoyed with outsiders in their city but the elderly were observing us and were rather curious about our reason for visiting. 2 Theory Varena is a peripheral municipality, located in the Southeastern part of Lithuania (figure 1). The capital of Varena’s municipality was established in 1862, during the construction of the Warsaw-St. Petersburg railroad (Visit Lithuania, n.d.). It has borders with Belarus to the South, Alytus municipality to the North, Lazdijai municipality to the West, and Vilnius municipality to the Northeast. In the Varena municipality, there are around 160 lakes, and the great part of the municipality is covered by forests which consists of around ⅔ of the whole municipal area. Figure 1. Varena district 2.1 Varena With the forest covering such a great part of Varena, the municipality has a great variety of mushroom species and is widely known as the mushroom capital of Lithuania. The main source