The Department of Social Services of the City Council of Cartagena, in collaboration with the company that manages the telecare service, and the Local Police are working together to design a protocol for the custody of keys to the homes of the elderly and vulnerable people who live alone.
The aim of this protocol is to speed up the assistance provided to people who need it, as, with this new agreement, the Local Police will be able to have a copy of the key to these homes. This possibility will considerably reduce the time taken by the emergency services, who sometimes have to set up a large number of arrangements to gain access to these homes.
The mayor and councillor for Social Welfare and Sports, Noelia Arroyo, recalled that there is a specific programme for loneliness in the elderly, “which has set up a social network to detect elderly people who live alone in Cartagena, to raise the alarm and provide the necessary means to care for them”.
“Although we already have home help and meal services, telecare and accompaniment, we are particularly concerned about the elderly who fall off the social radar, the elderly who live without family or social support,” said Arroyo.
In Cartagena there are almost 30,000 elderly people who live alone or with another elderly person, and almost 8,600 people live in total solitude.
Currently, the telecare service serves 520 users of the municipality through the telephone or mobile line, thus ensuring immediate intervention in crisis situations, situations of risk due to fragility or dependence. In this way, this device allows the elderly person to get in contact with specialised personnel, who will respond to the emergency situation presented. This service operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.