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[Translated] I would not want my future to be in the hands of politicians but in the hands of qualified experts.

[Translated] I am not happy with the current nursing home system and it is a system that is focused on services and not on people. It is desirable that this changes with everyone’s help.

[translate] I hope your study can contribute to helping older people in need of care.

[Translated] I would urgently need support as far as my parents are concerned. They live alone, my father doesn’t speak at all anymore, can’t be reached by phone either, and my mother now and then. I think they both need urgent support, but I can’t talk to them anymore. My mother had a serious brain operation, I was never informed by any doctor, by any nurse, by any social worker…….what can be done, what is available, nothing at all….

[translated] I would gladly take care of my family members if there were not serious issues that put a big barrier between me and them. It’s easy to place the responsibility on the shoulders of family members when one needs support, but no one considers that the one who is supposed to be the caregiver may be rejected from this role. It is a particular situation, but unfortunately not unique.

[…] When Covid came along it destroyed very important connections that enable older people in nursing homes to keep going & stay connected, to keep hope alive – the deterioration in my Mother in just 18 months was, & still is, devastating & resulted in her recent death. All those months we were unable to be by her side & keep her going, instead she wasted away as she was unable to comprehend what was going on with Covid, yet she was aware enough to know we were no longer with her. Looking through a window trying to communicate love & care to someone with dementia & who is very confused about why you wouldn’t come inside was one of the cruelest experiences. It was terrible to witness just how much our older people are let down by lack of creative, adequate, & in my opinion humane, care options because even in times of desperation when I considered taking my Mother out of the nursing home to live with me the pain of knowing that was not possible was very heavy as I knew the reality of what it had been like 4 years previously trying to care for her – lack of adequate home help, lack of adequate services – & now along now with significantly increased care needs it would have been a recipe for crisis. I became very unwell physically when I’d been involved in her care prior to her going to live in the nursing home.”

[Translated] I would like such surveys to be more efficient and to have more participation in them, and consequently I would like to talk and learn more about these issues in order to take action and make life easier for many individuals.

[translated] I am of the opinion that a pensioner has paid a rather large sum to the State month after month all his life. In old age, when that person would need long term care the state should participate in the necessary costs of the care and not leave the family to do it alone.

[translated] Long-term care should be almost exclusively the prerogative of state institutions that should have the necessary infrastructure and resources to respond to the needs of older people and their families.

[Translated] There are now already too few caregivers and nothing is done about it! How will that be in 10 years ?!