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[Translated] Support and training for family caregivers is needed in many ways.

[Translated] I have long cared for my sister and my mother, and now my husband who has cancer and is bedridden! I wish someone [could support me] for a few hours or once a few days so that I could go away once with my daughter and granddaughter or make a trip!

[translated -excerpt, emphasis in original text] Home-based assistance offered by the Romanian state to older people DOES NOT EXIST. This is unacceptable. […] for sick people and the elderly the situation is extremely BAD. There is no help. No state funded services to help them at home or in an institution, facilities for the elderly are so bad they are more like prisons or labour camps. I also strongly advise you to do a study and personal visits to psychiatric hospitals, and how mental health is treated in Romania.

Start to talk openly [about] discrimination of elderly in Sweden which has been going on AT least 20 years by now [emphasis in original].

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

“It’s very difficult to take care of elderly. It causes a lot of stress with effects on health. Wished for some more support structures. Needs have to be assessed often as they can change frequently.”

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

[Translated] Do not forget to correlate loss of functional independence with disease. Do not forget that 30% of dementias can be prevented and that frailty is preventable and reversible: prevention must also be funded.

[Translated – excerpt] Long-term care is an obligation of society. The administration has to participate and set criteria for equality, but it has to get involved in management, if it wants to do so under the same conditions as everyone else. Give a choice to the citizen who chooses what he/she wants, not what the administration thinks (free choice). Care should be directed by the people, not only centred on them. Empowerment of the citizen. Promote professional training and above all competences and skills. Increase staff ratios and salaries, and above all work/family/leisure balance. There is a lot of work to be done.

[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.