The cooperatives are working with specific programmes for the elderly
Japan, one of the countries with the oldest population implanted the Long-Term Care Insurance for people over the age of 60 two decades ago.
Many countries are adapting to the ageing of the population, as are the healthcare cooperatives all over the world. In the year 2000, the Japanese government created the Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI), which offers social care for people over the age of 60 years. The help is individualised and can be asked for at specific moments of the day, making meals or getting dressed, or for entering a care home, either temporarily or permanently.
The Saitama Medical Cooperative operates in the Saitama Prefecture in Japan. They advocate promoting health, preventing disease and making the residents participants in all the activities. The agenda for the elderly in Saitama includes walking, dancing, yoga, amongst other programmes to remain active. The exercise is carried out in the cooperative’s installations or in the street, to create links with the inhabitants of the area. Additionally, aware that one of the greatest illnesses that an elderly person can suffer is loneliness and social exclusion, they have created what they call ‘Anshin Rooms’ with tea parties in different spaces, where the elderly can get together and take part in workshops, cooking sessions or choirs. Also, thanks to its own technology, the members of the cooperative control the basic levels, such as blood pressure, meaning that the doctors know at all times and in real time, the state of health of their patients.
Help at home or from the farmacy
In Canada, cooperatives play an important role, with over 81 million users, 4,961 cooperatives in the healthcare sector and 14,806 in the social care sector, according to the International Health Cooperative Organisation (IHCO). All of them have to attend a growing number of elderly people with different specific programmes and some have already been created for this purpose. Amongst the latter ‘Aide Atout’ stands out, founded on the 27th of April, 1998 in Boleil, to the south of Montreal, which offers services at home to people who are losing their independence.
Another initiative to guarantee a more comfortable life for the elderly is that promoted by the Network of Independent Pharmacies (Redfarma) in Chile, with a free medicine delivery service for people over the age of 60 years all over the country.
