Prague, July 10 (CTK) – The 10 million population of the Czech Republic is ageing and economists warn that this must be taken into consideration in forming the state budget and that the health and social care must be reformed accordingly, daily Pravo writes in its weekend issue.
It writes that the average life expectancy rose by 4.2 years to the current 76 in men and by 3.4 years to 82 in women in the past 15 years.
The spending on long-term bed care increased by one quarter and on long-term home care by one fifth in 2010-14, Pravo quotes an analysis by Vladimira Kalnicka, from the department of statistics in education, health care, culture and social insurance of the Czech Statistical Office (CSU).
In 2014, overall spending on long-term care reached 62.1 billion crowns, which was almost 18 percent of the overall healthcare spending which amounted to 350.4 billion crowns, Pravo writes.
The rising life expectancy entails the need for enough beds and medical personnel in specialised facilities. The effort to make it possible for seniors to be capable of looking after themselves as long as possible and spend the end of their life at home raises the spending on social services and also the building of small barrier-free flats, Pravo writes.
“However, a big portion of seniors are not able to pay supplementary services to specialised facilities and organisations or for quality comprehensive services in private facilities. In addition, they do not have life savings. That is why the family must help financially, but they themselves often do not have adequate money,” Pravo quotes finacial adviser Frantisek Machacek as saying.
He said this results in that the services for seniors are mainly secured by the state, regions and communities, whose possibilities are limited, however.
Machacek said “it is always necessary to stress the need to also finacially provide for oneself for old age in another way but full reliance on the state pension and the country’s social system.”
