“In the last twenty years the aging rate in Ragusa and its province has literally skyrocketed. In 2005 it was 109.5 percent. Now, based on Istat estimates for 2024, it stands at 157 percent. This figure is growing. Services for the elderly, no. It’s the fault of a welfare system incapable of adapting to the times.”
This was stated by the secretaries of UilPensionati Sicilia and UilP Ragusa, Claudio Barone (in the photo below) and Giorgio Bandiera (in the photo above), who underline the role of associations – “we together with the Ada are about to start a significant literacy campaign IT for over 65s” – and they launch an appeal to political institutions “so that the arrival of the summer does not make us forget the problems and potential of an increasingly large part of the population, in the province of Ragusa as elsewhere”.
The union representatives add: “We need projects and investments. First of all, much more attention is needed for non-self-sufficient people and their families. Under the guidance of our leader Carmelo Barbagallo, first as general secretary of Uil and now of UilPensionati, we have supported with determination a long battle to obtain a law on non-self-sufficiency. Today, however, we denounce that we are in the presence of a reform that has been betrayed, first and foremost due to a lack of resources. Problems aggravated by a hospital system which, as we recalled just last year in one of our conferences on the ills of Sicilian healthcare, is structured above all to manage emergencies”. Barone and Bandiera conclude “claiming commitment and concreteness also in the field of active aging”. Therefore, they explain: “UilP has been asking for a civil service for the elderly for some time, on which we are also ready to discuss with local authorities starting from the Iblea province to test our proposals. From school tutoring to professional training, from support to homeless people to assistance for the most vulnerable, to environmental protection. Because the elderly are a resource, not a burden.”
