European Dialogue on Active & Healthy Ageing: Consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on informal carers in Europe
Join for a conversation with Mr. Stecy Yghemonos, Executive Director of Eurocarers and Mr. Marco Socci, Researcher at the National Institute of Health and Science of Ageing in Italy. Learn about the outcomes of Eurocarers’ survey on informal carers in Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic and exchange about the daily challenges of informal carers during this health crisis.
15th February 2021 at 3 PM CET
Seminar 1: The Consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on informal carers in Europe
Internationally available figures to date suggest that people over 65 with pre-existing diseases and disabled people of all age are those most affected by the COVID-19 virus (Eurocarers, 2021). This has led to serious health crisis for a growing percentage of the ageing European population. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic related mandatory social distancing measures the delivery of social & other services to older, frail or disabled people such as home healthcare, had been radically affected.
As a result, informal/family carers together with professional carer organisations have been overwhelmed by the health crisis putting additional pressure on an already strained care system around Europe.
Support to the many dedicated family carers has suffered, failing for example to provide the increased need for psychological support, face to face mutual help groups or relief services to diminish the burden on the carers’s own physical and mental health.
Therefore, informal carers often find themselves alone and isolated in their homes to manage the care of loved ones without being able to count on external support, be it public or private.
The AAL Programme invites you to learn more about the situation of informal carers, a group all too often forgotten by policymakers and our institutional health & care systems. The work of our two invited professionals dealing with informal care will shed light on the situation of informal carers during the current pandemic and what needs to be done to improve not only their quality of care but their own well-being.
Moderator:
Nicola Filizola, Communication and Public Affairs Manager, AAL Programme
Speakers:
Marco Socci is researcher at IRCCS-INRCA – National Institute of Health and Science on Ageing (Ancona, Italy) since 2013. He graduated in Sociology in 2000, was Marie Sklodowska-Curie visiting fellow at Sheffield University in 2004 and obtained a PhD in Economic Sociology in 2005. He gained experience in several EU-funded projects and his research activity focuses on various socio-economic phenomena associated with ageing (e.g. active ageing, caregiving, etc.).
Stecy Yghemonos is the Executive Director of Eurocarers, the European network working with and for informal carers. Eurocarers brings together 73 organisations from 26 countries that aim to ensure that the growing care needs of the European population are addressed. A trained journalist, Stecy is an EU policy and communication specialist. Over the last seventeen years he has been involved in a number of organisations focusing on the implementation and reinforcement of EU policies in the areas of press freedom, social equity, children’s rights, as well as health and social care.