Homecare sponsored by the state has failed the elderly in a wide range of areas, State Comptroller Joseph Shapira said in a special report on the issue on Sunday.
One major issue is that the National Insurance Institute does not ensure that homecare workers are trained for their positions.
Rather, it simply depends on companies which deploy homecare workers to ensure they are properly trained – which the report says often is not the case.
In fact, the report said that only 30% of homecare workers have proper training.
Shapira said that this means the requirement for even minimal training “is essentially dead.”
This means that in a job which is already difficult in terms of respectfully dealing with the special needs of the elderly, many homecare workers are unprofessional and do not have the tools to give proper care. 116 homecare companies are operating with around 80,000 Israeli homecare workers and around 37,000 foreign homecare workers.
Next, the report said that 40% of the elderly do not get all of the hours of homecare they are approved for.
The comptroller explained that many elderly persons do not understand their rights and irrationally cancel hours out of concern that they may not have enough hours to handle a later unexpected emergency. This leaves many elderly often without the care they need.
Even worse, there is widespread fraud by some homecare workers who submit reports that they provided more homecare hours than they actually did – some even working at two locations simultaneously.
Further, the report said that “the state’s authorities are in practice abandoning family members and leaving them to cope with the burden connected with caring for elderly” family members.
NII has agreed in principle that it should pay for more homecare hours, but has not done so in practice.
Shapira also criticized NII for failing to ensure that the Health Ministry and Social Services Ministry are providing all of the services required.
Another problem is that only a very small number of elderly take advantage of special centers for promoting activities for the elderly. The report said that many elderly persons were to poor or faced another obstacle in being able to travel to the center’s events. It is based on the comptroller’s survey of 300,000 persons including in-depth surveys of 687 persons.
All of these issues are due to only get worse in the future.
With all of the problems with elderly homecare, the state was already spending NIS 5.8 billion on 165,000 elderly persons in 2016. By 2035, the number of elderly persons eligible for homecare is projected to jump to 361,000.
Article source: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.813088
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