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[translated] The development of home care services in Romania would contribute to increasing the quality of life of Romanians and would be of great help to family doctors [general practitioners] who are overburdened with time-consuming bureaucratic tasks.

[translated] Centers for socializing of the elderly should be provided, for playing chess, knitting, and so on; because after they retire they are at home all day and have no communication with other people.

Thanks for keeping this in the public eye. No easy answers, I’m not sure I agree with all of mine today, but we must keep trying!!

[Translated] In Belgium, we are immensely lucky that our health care system is based on solidarity. It is important that this continues and is even strengthened to avoid inequalities.

[…] 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 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.

Both my parents died in a nursing home. I believe that had there been appropriate in-home care available outside of the hours of 9am to 5pm that my mother might have been able to live at home. As it was she suffered a severe fall at night and was admitted to hospital and declined there to the point that she required full-time care. The cost of overnight carers was exorbitantly expensive. The government should put more resources into providing high quality home care which doesn’t end at 5pm when patients are most vulnerable

[translated] My biggest fear is that I will be powerless to support and provide for myself. That would place my family in a difficult financial and physical situation, given that my future salary and pension will not be enough to cover all expenses.

[Translated] I don’t understand why people with high income and property don’t have to pay for their own place in [residential] care homes!

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