Автор работы: Пользователь скрыл имя, 22 Марта 2015 в 15:54, доклад
Before talking about elders, let’s better understand which population category we are talking first. Mostly elders are recognized as the ones stopped engaging in job and retired on the basis of age. Representatives of this group can vary by their class affiliation, gender, previous occupation, health, living, financial level, talents or character. Also they can vary much by their family and position in it, by their goals, values and motivation
The system of social security for older people (comparison: Ukraine and Estonia)
Before talking about elders, let’s better understand which population category we are talking first. Mostly elders are recognized as the ones stopped engaging in job and retired on the basis of age. Representatives of this group can vary by their class affiliation, gender, previous occupation, health, living, financial level, talents or character. Also they can vary much by their family and position in it, by their goals, values and motivation.
On medical point of view old age is a period of life between losing the reproduction ability and death. It’s characterized by decrease in physical and mental health, weakening of body’s functions.
Growing old of course influences all of the human’s life. In time, they can not participate in any social activities as good as they could before. But that’s not means that they can’t continue to work or be socially active though.
Getting old is a process which man cannot significantly influence or stop, so level of help from society that one can get, is one of the criteria defining social consciousness level. Stereotypical views on getting old, mostly based on prejudice of elders being frail and poor, often cause a insensitive attitude towards them.
In Ukraine elder people are mostly ether ignored or treated as ones constantly in need of care and support (although often it’s really needed). As far as I can see, Estonian society treats its elders as their full members, acknowledging that active and able people are always useful to society and remain its part despite of their age. Development and economics of country improve if older people stay able and willing to participate in society.
An official criterion of being old in Ukraine is a retirement by age. Retirement age depends on profession but mostly is a 60 years old age, provided with an officially documented 15 years of job participation or other defined by law criteria.
One of the state-provided means of support is a pension. Its mostly main help and source of living for elders – a medium amount of money, provided on the monthly basis. Its depends on profession and occupation length, but mostly not enough for a fulfilling life. So most of elders continue to work after official retirement, even if it’s bad for their health or social life. That’s especially common among the lone people, which don’t have a family to support them and pension not enough for a decent life. Some of them, mostly citizens of small towns, live in poverty.
The Constitution of Ukraine states that every citizen is guaranteed a social support in case of losing ability to fully take care of oneself due to old age, illness, disability, loss of the only employable family member, or other defined by law criteria. Thus the state guarantees the support of elderly people. This support if fulfilled by provision of social services, complex of juridical, economical, psychological, educational, medical, rehabilitating and other types of social activities. These services are provided by state-run social institutions. There old ones can have a juridical consultation or psychological examination and help. Those social centers provide them a registration and processing of documents, subsidies, privileges and discounts on medical treatment and medicine, discount for public transportation usage and other material help. Social workers also visit ones that are in need of special care, unable to visit center themselves and/or lone. They can help or take care of cleaning, buy products, pay bills and provide other help that their client needs.
There also quite a lot of private social care institutions, clinics and elderly homes, but most of them are commercially-based and thus are available only for ones that have higher financial level or enough financial support. Most of the elders in the towns and villages are unable to maintain living in such institutions, also this somewhat justified by the fact that such centers provide much better conditions compared to that the state-run ones does.
In total, social support situation in Ukraine is not good, current government care of elder people is not enough to provide them decent standard of living and well-being. Some of our elders are poor and barely able to buy the most necessary goods and products.
In Estonia, social care of elder seems to be much better than in Ukraine. But elders have some problems here too: unstable income, early retirement and age discrimination. Elderly people (65+) make up about 15% of Estonia population, 67% of them are female and approximately 30% of them live solitary.
Despite the fact that Estonia is part of European Union its state’s social care system has much in common to Ukraine’s. I think this is influenced by the common past age history: both of our countries were members of USSR and still have a significant percentage of Russian population. Social institutions structure in Estonia and Ukraine are similar but have some differences. For example, one can receive a national, early, professional or voluntary pension. Those are special kinds of pension that can be received depending on people’s life. Overall, social services provided by these institutions are similar but mostly executed on different quality levels. Additional social programs are developed on state and regional level and quantity of services depends on regional administration.
If old people stay employed after official retirement, they can substantially strengthen their financial position. This especially useful for those who live solitary, but it is important that their job would not be too hard for them. Apart from additional financial resource it provides a source of social activity and communication. One of the modern ideas and directions in social policies of Estonia is to encourage old ones to continue work and take care of themselves, politicians think that it would be better for elders to be more independent and continue work if they are able. Such policy should be beneficial for a state’s well-being. Despite that, elders spend most of the time at home. Thus their living conditions are very important; apartment should be comfortable and convenient for a people. Thus most of the policies are directed into provision of services directly to home.
In European countries people take more care of their own health, try to have a healthy lifestyle, eat environmentally friendly products. Elders try to live independent and take care of their helth themselves. Estonia has a more developed system of medical services for older people. Elders have a right for a outpatient and inpatient care. Depending on the disease, one can have a partial or full compensation of treatment if he has insurance. Also there is a restorative treatment system, which is mostly provided by a sanatorium, and can also be covered by insurance. While at home, elders can take care of minor disease or health problems by themselves. Also it is important to provide easy and fast access to public areas and institutions (shops, pharmacy, hospitals, social centers).
I think that our system of caring for old are quite similar but Estonia is actually fully providing all help that it should. In Ukraine sometimes defined in law measures stay on paper and doesn’t really get implemented or just ignored, thus elders do not receive enough help they need.
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