DEPUTIES on the Human Rights Committee warned yesterday more needed to be done to ensure pensioners were properly treated at old people’s homes on the island.
They said they had received complaints of poor conditions and even beating of old people at certain homes.
The allegations surfaced as members of the House Human Rights Committee paid a surprise visit to a number of old people’s homes in Limassol yesterday.
The Chairman of the Committee, DIKO deputy Sophocles Fittis, told reporters they had decided to pay a surprise visit, because past visits that had been announced had seen homes ensuring “they had everything in order”.
“We had this experience in Nicosia where everything was cleaned up to improve the picture that the Committee would see,” he said.
Fittis said that from letters received by the Committee it appeared a general upgrading of both state and private nursing homes was needed.
The committee said they were satisfied with what they had seen in Limassol yesterday, but New Horizons deputy Christos Clerides said he had a number of written complaints concerning some homes in Limassol and Nicosia, regarding lack of care, bad diet, lack of hygiene, “and even beatings”.
However he said it was difficult to establish the true extent of the problem because it was not easy for a pensioner to come forward and make a complaint against the institution they were living in.
Clerides said checks should be made on the homes every month, and not every quarter as is currently the case in Limassol.
“Our visit is to send a message to all old people’s shelters and nursing homes that, as these are places which are vulnerable to human rights violations, they will be under constant scrutiny by the Human Rights Committee,” said Clerides.
DISY Committee member and doctor Eleni Theocharous said that old people were very vulnerable members of society.
“We have to be continuously vigilant so that we do not leave any room for standards to slip,” she said.
AKEL deputy Eleni Mavrou stressed how difficult it was to investigate such charges as it seemed to boil down to spread-out individual cases rather than an across-the board problem.
“The message that we can send is that nursing homes are not the best possible solution for old people,” she said. “The best solution is one that gives them the chance of remaining in their own environment surrounded by neighbours and family.”
