'High-quality care' offered at church-run elderly homes - Justyne Caruana

Justyne Caruana speaks about new respite programme. Video by Ray Attard

The quality of church-run elderly homes is of a high level, parliamentary secretary for the elderly Justyne Caruana said.

“Audit teams from my department visited elderly homes over the past few months and while they did find some problems, such as in the quality of some of the food, the overall standards were high.”

An audit report of 37 homes for the elderly earlier this year found church-run and private homes lagging behind government homes in terms of health services, staff friendliness and the general environment. 

Caruana said that national minimum standards for elderly care homes are needed to ensure that private, church, and state-run homes all adhere to the same requirements.

“A consultation process on these national standards has ended and experts are now designing a draft of it,” Caruana said, without indicating when it will be finalised. The final document will be legally binding.

She was speaking at the launch of a state-funded respite care programme at the church-run elderly care home Case Leone. This three-week programme will offer temporary care for elderly people living with their families. 14 new beds have also been added to Casa Leone.

“This will alleviate some of the stress that can arise out of taking care of old people,” Caruana said. “Elderly people will be given the same level of care over here as they would in their own homes.”