Red Cross seeks help as Europe ages (Feature)

By Albert Otti Apr 14, 2010, 14:19 GMT

Vienna - The European Red Cross movement is seeking to include more parts of society to help care for the continent's growing elderly population, Red Cross officials said at a conference in Vienna.

At the meeting that is being held this week, national Red Cross organizations are looking for new strategies as the movement expects that neither governments nor aid groups will be able to shoulder the growing need for elderly care alone.

'Europe is old. It is today the oldest world region,' said Massimo Barra, the Italian chair of the standing commission of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent.

By 2050, almost 35 per cent of Europeans are projected to be over 60, up from 22 per cent last year, according to the latest UN report on ageing. Some 27 per cent are expected to be older than 65 by the middle of the century.

'We need a 'welfare mix'', Monika Wild told the German Press Agency dpa. The senior Austrian Red Cross official is part of the conference's working group on ageing.

Red Cross societies in Europe agree that more volunteers are needed to work alongside professional caregivers, and models are being developed to build closer social networks in neighbourhoods.

The problem is especially acute in eastern countries such as Georgia and Lithuania, where many young people have emigrated to seek jobs elsewhere, leaving elders without family care.

'Shared apartment living could be one model,' Wild said.

In these cooperatives, which already exist in Germany, around 10 elderly people share an apartment, and are cared for by one professional, as well as volunteers and family members who take turns on a rotating schedule.

The Red Cross does not expect volunteers to do actual care work such as washing patients, but to help with additional services such as physical or mental training activities.

Although the Red Cross in Europe has long been offering care services for the elderly, it has held off discussing the problem of ageing until now because it was focused more on problems in poorer countries, Wild said.

Besides social networks, the Red Cross is looking to technology to meet increasing demand for care services.

For example, detectors worn on the wrist or installed in the floor which notice if a person falls have been developed, though they still need more work. Other innovations already in use in countries such as Japan include video monitoring in homes.

But the Red Cross is not only seeking to increase care for the elderly, but also by the elderly. The idea is to get more recent retirees to work as volunteers.

'Ageing is not a negative development,' Barra said, 'let's not forget that they are an important resource for society, especially for the Red Cross and Red Crescent.'