“Long Live the Elderly!” started in Rome in 2004, as an experimental programme of the Community of Sant’Egidio and the Ministry of Health, in response to the sharp increase in mortality in the Summer 2003, when thousands of elderly people died in Europe due to exceptionally high temperatures.
The high mortality observed in 2003 was not due only to the frailty of the elderly population in the world, and particularly in Europe, but also to their social isolation.
The Programme is an innovative service to fight social isolation through the creation of networks that support a more traditional response (such as home care, day-centers, caring neighbours, etc) reaching large sectors of the risk-exposed population.
Prevention is the priority: to counteract the negative effects of critical events (heat waves, flu epidemics, falls, loss of one’s partner, etc) on the health of over 80-year-olds.
The strategy of the Programme is based on pro-active monitoring.
- Direct beneficiaries: ALL over 80 year-old residents in the territory identified for the implementation of the programme.
- Indirect beneficiaries: informal network actors (neighbours, porters, shopkeepers, medical doctors, etc).
The system of pro-active monitoring enables to reach excellent results in terms of health prevention and cost reduction.
Computer registration of the data of elderly people, according to the rules governing personal information (GDPR).
The elderly are contacted regularly and entered in the telephone control programme, they receive visits at home or make use of direct interventions, upon their request.
District social operators and volunteers (young and seniors):
- Run the telephone centre
- Guarantee proximity services
- Organize and animate events
- Visit the elderly at home
- Help carry out bureaucratic procedures
Coordinators (social workers):
- Programme and verify intervention plans
- Insure constant relations with the local social and health services
- Prepare reports on the services offered
- Promote dissemination actions