Sunday,
July 08,
In Aging
The
ANNOTICO Report
While
decisions to have one or no children might make for easier lifestyles when
young, a generation or two later the choice means fewer children and grandchildren to help the aged.
However,
Nursing Homes
haven't caught on much here, possibly because Italians tend to distrust
institutions.
Many likewise
distrust Immigrant Caregivers,
and are resorting to turn to another old fixture of
The
residents, whom the nuns call "guests," pay $1,770 a month modest compared with the
New twist on
By Frances D'Emilio, Associated Press
June 7, 2007
Rita Duda, who left Ukraine in search of work, lays out caffe latte and cookies each day for Marzano's breakfast, shops for him and, every afternoon after his nap, accompanies him to a bench on the corner, which he shares with ladies and gentlemen in their 70s and 80s while their caretakers Ukrainians, Moldavians, Poles and Romanians catch up on gossip.
Marzano is one of a swelling number of Italians entrusting themselves to an army of foreign workers, from eastern Europe, South America, Asia and Africa who are doing what Italian families increasingly can't or won't do take care of their elderly.
Long life and low birthrates have conspired to change family life, which long had been the one institution Italians could count on while history rolled past, with its parade of conquerors and short-lived governments.
Twenty-four of the world's
25 oldest countries are in Europe, noted a joint report by the European
Commission and AARP, a
Italian life expectancy is
78.3 years for men and 84 for women. But more significantly,
Meanwhile, the incentives to have children are few. Italians joke that by the time their children qualify for scant public day care, they are too old for it. Tax breaks for minor dependents are miserly. Costly housing makes it hard to give a child his or her own room.
Now, with so many living so long and with retirement possible as early as at age 57 Italy is paying the price in medical care, pensions and social security, for having so few children.
While decisions to have one or no children might make for easier lifestyles when young, a generation or two later the choice means fewer children and grandchildren to help the aged.
"Without Rita, I wouldn't be able to manage," said Marzano, running his cane through his fingers and fretting about how he'll manage this summer with a substitute home companion when Duda, a 48-year-old divorced woman, visits her family in Ukraine.
Marzano has outlived his wife, sister, three brothers and a son. His other son lives in the neighborhood with his daughter-in-law, who is in poor health.
On Thursday afternoons, when Duda is off, a granddaughter comes to keep him company. On Sundays, Duda's other day off, his son's family bring him lunch, but they don't stay with him to eat it, Marzano said.
"I would have thought I would have lived with my son; I would never have thought that it would be like this," said Marzano.
Duda and others, paid for by the elderly's
children or by the elderly themselves, are
Putting grandma or grandpa in a nursing home when they no longer are self-sufficient hasn't caught on much here, possibly because Italians tend to distrust institutions.
So the emphasis here remains on the home, even while home is ever more likely to mean home alone.
In 1950,
So dependent have Italians become on the foreign caregivers that when the government offered an amnesty a few years ago for illegal immigrants, it placed no limits on the number of foreigners a family could employ if the workers cared for elderly.
Golini has been crusading for years for Italians to have more children, accept more immigrants and work longer.
"My terror is that we will reach old age abandoned," Golini, 69, said in an interview.
"Old people, and
especially those who are alone and not independent, are going to be one of the
emergencies
Emilio Mortillo,
a bioethicist at Aging Society, a think tank in
But immigration is
relatively new to
So some elderly, fearful of
admitting foreigners to their homes, turn to another old fixture of
Waiting for nuns to serve
her dinner at the Pius X home for the aged in
"And rightly so. You hear so many stories about them, my daughter would say," said De Filippis. "My daughter said I could live with her, but she kept telling me: 'I leave for work at 8 a.m. and you'll be alone all day."'
Since nuns labor for God instead of a paycheck, room and board at homes for oldsters run by religious orders cost much less than at traditional nursing homes.
Caring for the elderly as a business also makes economic sense for the nuns.
When there were no longer
enough children to fill the classrooms, the Disciples of Sisters of Eucharistic
Jesus converted a nursery and elementary school in
"Our mothers stayed at home caring for their mothers and their mothers-in-law," said Sister Maria Cecilia at the home. "Now women work and don't even have time to care for their own children."
The residents, whom the
nuns call "guests," pay $1,770 a month modest compared with the
Ninety-year-old Italia Matteucci, elegant in a long pearl necklace, pearl stud earrings, a red cardigan and a wool plaid skirt, pays for her room in the former elementary school out of her monthly pension check.
She had been living alone in a studio apartment but "I was afraid that they'd find me dead there some day," and so she turned to the nuns.
Her 68-year-old daughter has health problems, and her two grandsons, in their 30s, rarely come either, said Matteucci.
Many of the caregivers come from countries where families are large and the concept of abandoning oldsters is inconceivable.
"In my country you
don't see this," said Rosa Elena Floris, an Ecuadorean taking a course for home companions at
Floris cared for an Italian woman for eight years until she died at 89.
"The woman had a son and a daughter, but she almost never saw them," recalled Floris. "They would call and say, 'Is everything OK? Did she take her medicine?"'
When the university first offered the course, in 1999, only foreigners enrolled, said Dr. Flavia Caretta, a geriatrics specialist who runs the program. But this year's course had a sprinkling of Italians, suggesting they see a growth industry offering a career.
The foreign caretakers earn about $1,500 monthly, handsome compared to wages in their homelands, or about 30% less if they live in and receive room and board.
Two remedies for aging societies are raising the retirement age to save on pensions, and encouraging bigger families.
This year German lawmakers
voted overwhelmingly to gradually raise the retirement
age from 65 to 67 by 2012.
Poland, with one of Europe's lowest fertility rates, recently began a costly program of tax exemptions, longer maternity leaves and better preschool services to encourage bigger families.
But
Contributing: Daniele
Pinto in
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health
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