I recently went with the Riu Palace Aruba to San Pedro Pavilion and with the Riu Palace Antillas to Marie Stella. Both homes for the elderly are run by a local foundation called SABA, Stichting Algemene Bejaardenzorg Aruba, with highly trained and qualified nurses and caretakers who baby about 400 elderly, the island’s Alzheimer patients, adults with physical disabilities and adults suffering from different stages of dementia.
The MinHealth just announced that he is aiming at reducing the size of SABA, sending as many elderly as possible home, with some form of home-care, because most people would prefer that. They would prefer to live out their lives at home. He said he was not replacing vacancies within SABA, instead he was growing the number of people employed by the White & Yellow Cross, so that just like in the Netherlands, the frail elderly may continue to live home aided by regular visits of the White & Yellow Cross professionals.
It sounds good in theory, so I spoke to some of the angels working at SABA and they painted a different picture, for me. They said the MinHealth is emulating a Dutch model, which is possible in the Netherlands with higher pension payments and more social benefits. This home care dream is not feasible in Aruba where elderly will surely be left alone to fend for themselves, not because they have cruel and unloving kids, but because their family members are working two different jobs, struggling to make ends meet, and provide adequate child care, to their own kids.
The SABA angels speculated this whole brouhaha was about personalities, not principles, as there is an existing clash between the SABA CEO and the MinHealth, who don’t see eye to eye.
What they said is the following: You cannot copy a social or medical structure from one continent to another. SABA is a wonderful foundation, it’s not a sinking ship, it is a highly functioning organization with supportive and skilled people, and instead of starving it for funds and shrinking it by attrition, a dialogue should take place, totally client-oriented, for the good of the elderly who deserve a better quality of life.
What else they said? When the elderly need to go to the doctor their SABA caretakers often take them in their own car for lack of an institutional gasoline allowance; When the wash machine breaks, the SABA caretakers take laundry home, which is the case now at Marie Stella, where the wash machine recently died; And any little extra, even a soda or a soft drink, is covered by the SABA caretakers, determined not to let their clients down. I was very touched by that story.
My friends at Marie-Stella suggested expanding the day care facility, so that family members could leave their elderly, impaired relatives for the day, while they go to work against a fee, and that would be extra income for the home; they also suggested diversifying the services they offer, to adapt their modus operandi to current needs. It’s not all about finances they reiterated, it’s about people, frail, often demented and we have o advocate on their behalf.
