Seniors Stranded In Canary Island Hospitals

A report from the Canary Islands highlights a growing issue affecting elderly citizens including foreign expatriates who have lost touch with family in their original countries. 

In the Canary Islands, a crisis is unfolding as elderly patients, discharged from hospitals, find themselves without a home or family willing to care for them.

This troubling trend, recently highlighted, raises serious concerns about societal responsibility and the vulnerability of the ageing population.

Dolores Fabelo, President of the Official College of Social Work of Las Palmas, shed light on this issue: ‘The average is 300, 400 patients of this type.

‘There are circumstances such as these, with a lot of hospitalisation due to viral processes, which can cause these peaks, the problem is shared by all hospitals.’

A Growing Elderly Population Increasingly Alone

In the Canary Islands, over 66,300 people aged 65 and older live alone, a figure that reflects a broader, national trend.

The government has introduced an emergency plan to address the situation, involving private initiatives for the swift relocation of these patients. The plan, spearheaded by Deputy Minister of Welfare, Francisco Candil Gonzalez, involves an initial investment of €14 million.

Gonzalez explained the economic rationale, stating, ‘The supply of places in public residences is structural, but these patients also occupy resources in hospitals for a long time, we are talking about the cost of a hospital bed between €600 and €700 per day; while that of a socio-sanitary bed is €100-€120 per day.’

The Plight Of Foreign Retirees

A concerning aspect of this crisis is the growing number of uprooted European retirees. Isolated and without local family support, they represent a small but increasing portion of the abandoned elderly.

Gonzalez expressed his concern, ‘On several visits to very touristy places, we have located foreign retirees, very old, with some deterioration, living in cheap apartments that in the long run could end up in hospitals.’

Statistics indicate that 5 per cent of abandoned elderly people are European, but numbers are said to be increasing. ‘Our concern in these cases is to work with the countries of origin.’ He fears that without intervention, the Canary Islands will become ‘the largest nursing home in Europe.’

As the Canary Islands and other regions grapple with this escalating problem, the need for increased aid and more efficient social service processes is clear. Only time will tell if these measures will be enough to stem the tide of elderly abandonment.