Subsidising an elderly population
ARE we encouraging the ageing population in Guernsey?
We have just managed to get a relative into one of the care homes here. This person was born here and lived here all their life. However, I was extremely surprised to see that you only have to have lived in the island for the past five years to qualify for the subsidy of around £500 a week from the States.
The care homes are very valuable to us and I hope that there are enough spaces to go around, but it can't be just me thinking that maybe friends and family from off island are being engineered to live here on our little island to meet five-year requirements to get a fair whack of the weekly tally paid? If this indeed only equates to one person per year, then that's approximately £26,000 of taxpayers' money.
Maybe someone in the know could let we readers know how many people who have never contributed to the system are using care homes and whether they could have been provided for wherever they lived previously.
Name and address withheld.
