Senior Citizens

Old age is not a handicap but rather a valuable cluster of experience! As Christian Democrats we want to underline that the senior citizens are an important resource to their communities and the entire society. Their experience and skills are important and need to be shared with the younger generations. Senior citizens' participation in the activities of the society, for example voluntary work, needs to be encouraged. The lengthening of life expectancy reflects the improved living conditions, health and virility of the population. It is not a problem but rather an opportunity.

Adequate income and correctly dimensioned aid need to be ensured to the senior citizens in the different stages of their old age according to their functionality and life situation. Instead of quality recommendations, we need legislated limits for adequate personnel in the care of the elderly, as well as limits for the supporting services in proportion to the needs of the elderly person, and for the level of care.

Each person has an inalienable human value even if he or she was bedridden and in need of care due to old age or weakness. One of the measurements of civilization of a society is the way it treats the weakest and the most vulnerable people.

As Christian Democrats, we will strive for

• making the senior citizens to be seen as a resource in society, where their experience and skills are shared with younger generations.
  
  
•  getting the senior citizens to be treated with dignity and respect as individuals having regard for their individual needs and decisions.
  

•  having more attention paid to the independent life management of the senior citizens, and realizing their own wishes for their life. An assessment of the need of services needs to be made at the age of 75 instead of the age of 80. Regular pre-emptive home visits are necessary in order to assess the need of services and to provide the necessary aid equipment, for example.

•  a better care of the economic subsistence of the senior citizens, and sharing the economic burden of sickness with the society.

•  improving the quality of the care of the elderly both in and outside of the home by considerably increasing qualified personnel that is empowered by appreciation for their work and by appropriate wages to do the demanding work of caring for the elderly.

• developing family care as an important complementing form of care in the public health and social services.
  
  
•  giving the elderly person in need of permanent institutionalized care or assisted living an opportunity to have a care place in the municipality where his or her children or other close relatives live.

• safeguarding human life in all circumstances and giving a dying person access to good terminal care and the right to a natural death regardless of his or her place of care.