Care crisis – your home is at risk

HSC president Deputy Al Brouard, while desperately clinging on to the care element in his committee's name, says that he and his political colleagues ‘know what needs to be done’ in tackling the care crisis, most sharply felt by a lack of staff.

But he also reflected that what can be done is in the hands of the wider States and, indeed, the public.

This week he mentioned in a radio interview about ‘what the public are prepared to pay for’.

‘Are they prepared to pay greater social security, are they prepared to use some of the equity in their own home to pay for their own care?’ he said.

And so, with the long term care insurance scheme already under considerable threat and facing a review, the spectre of older age islanders losing their homes in later life is right back on the table.

Some will argue that is fair and right, and the next generation should not be entitled to gain from their hard work and prudence of their parents.

Many others will be vehemently against such a suggestion – the kind of reaction which led to the establishment of the long term care scheme, and thereby the protection of the family home, in the first place, in the 1990s.

Deputy Brouard is right on one thing. The current systems of care are still predicated on a life expectancy which is out of kilter with today. So something has to change.

But if the deputies think the tax review is a tough question to tackle, they better be ready for a real battle on this one.