Political Party, Bloco Esquerda, today visited the Lar da Bela Vista, Old Peoples Home, in Funchal, to protests against it privatisation.
Issuing a press release, they said:
“The PSD/CDS stopped governing for the Madeirans and Porto-Santenses a long time ago and are selling Madeira; they abandoned social democracy and Christian democracy, their values, and everything became a business where everything can be sold, where there are no red lines to the greed of the private sector.
Once they sold the coastline, now they are selling our sea to Pingo Doce and destroying marine biodiversity and, in the medium term, jeopardising the livelihoods of our fishermen; are selling our mountains and laurel forest and destroying our natural heritage, and with this increasing the risk of fires and contributing to the worsening of the problem of lack of water that is already a reality on our island, particularly in agriculture; they are selling our agricultural and forestry areas, housing, real estate speculation, local accommodation and Golden Visa millionaires.
And now, in the dead of August, the last Government Council decided to open the process of granting the Lar da Bela Vista and they are selling care to our elderly, our mothers, our fathers and grandparents to yet another private monopoly.
This is unacceptable!
The Left Block is against the privatisation of Lar da Bela Vista, the largest public home in the Region and in an area where there is so much need. He is against this PSD/CDS mercantilist government model, which is selling the Welfare State and essential public services to support the population.
And it is necessary to tell the Madeirans and Porto-Santenses that there is an alternative and that there is another model of governance.
We have an aging population, with many chronic diseases, with few financial resources and it is necessary to give families an alternative to care for their elderly people that is not just leaving them in the hospital emergency room, as is often suggested. There is a huge shortage of homes and this cannot be a business anymore. It is the responsibility of the Regional Government to provide assistance to its elderly and to those who have already given so much to our land.
Therefore, BE-M defends a public care network that reinforces the public supply of homes and day centers; that reinforces the home support network and that actually supports informal caregivers and does not just give them alms, to which many do not even have access, and that keeps everything the same.
It is up to the Government to ensure this public network of care, so that all citizens, not just those who have money, have access, and where families can leave their relatives when they have no way of providing them with the necessary care at home.
We have already been a national reference in the area of care, unfortunately this PSD/CDS government has not made any investment in public homes, neither in the few existing ones nor in a new offer in view of the immense lack that exists and it is the degradation that we are witnessing and now the attempt to hand over to yet another private monopoly.”
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
