Proposition de loi visant à supprimer en principe la possibilité pour le CPAS de récupérer les frais exposés au titre de l'aide sociale dans le cadre de l'admission de personnes âgées en maison de repos.
General information ¶
- Authors
- VB Steven Creyelman, Nathalie Dewulf, Ellen Samyn, Dominiek Sneppe, Hans Verreyt
- Submission date
- Oct. 15, 2019
- Official page
- Visit
- Status
- Rejected
- Requirement
- Simple
- Subjects
- maintenance obligation elderly person welfare
Voting ¶
- Voted to adopt
- Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI Open Vld N-VA MR
- Voted to reject
- PVDA | PTB VB
Contact form ¶
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Discussion ¶
March 21, 2024 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)
Full source
Ellen Samyn VB ⚙
Colleagues, today I would still like to try to convince you to vote against the rejection of our bill to abolish the possibility of recovery of the rest house invoice by OCMWs. It is shocking that today the costs of the care institutions for the elderly continue to rise. The average holiday home invoice currently amounts to 2,167 euros in Flanders, an increase of more than 200 euros over a year period. If you compare the average retirement pension with that, you can only find that there are very few people who can pay their retirement home invoice.
The figures are dramatic. For nine out of ten employees and self-employed, the statutory pension is not sufficient to pay the rest home bill, even if the healthcare budget is included. Then I’m only talking about the clean rest house bill, not about the cost of any excursions and pedicure, hairdresser, pharmacy and doctor costs. Recently, someone ⁇ to me that the price of food in the resting house has increased by 40% from one month to another. How can someone with a low pension who has worked all his life, pay all that? That is, in terms of the Flemish Interest, a welfare state is unworthy.
What is unworthy of a welfare state is that in nine out of ten Flemish municipalities one is bound by the maintenance obligation. If necessary, children should contribute financially to pay their parents' rest home bills.
With the present bill, we waive the maintenance obligation. As far as we are concerned, it is not normal to mention that a group of seniors continues to live at home, often in unhealthy and unsafe conditions, out of fear because otherwise their home care costs would be partially charged to their children. Furthermore, my party does not find it justifiable for children to be charged for those costs, ⁇ because that can give rise to quarrels, quarrels and even breakups in a family. This is the result of further individualization of society.
I suspect that many of you have seen the shocking Panoramic Reportage of April 20, 2023, with testimonies of, for example, a couple who had to pay 900 euros to pay the resting house costs of their parents. The problem with that testimony was that the daughter in question had to come around with a pension of 1,400 euros. Is this a society in which we want to live?
Not only my party thinks that something needs to be done about the maintenance obligation. Since 2017, the Flemish Ouderenraad has also advocated for a limited maintenance obligation.
Our party goes a step further and believes that the maintenance obligation should be completely abolished. It is about how society deals with those in need of care. For us, this is absolutely a core task of the government. In 28 Flemish municipalities there is no maintenance obligation. For the Flemish Interest it is therefore no more than fair that everyone is equal before the law.
I hope that you will support our bill and vote against the rejection.