On 13 September, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Impoljca Retirement Home in Sevnica, Ombudsman Peter Svetina congratulated the participants in the ceremony on the enviable anniversary of the co-creation of the story of intergenerational cooperation through institutional care and forms of community living. "A story of care for the elderly that puts respect, understanding, self-determination and all the other determinants that a person needs to spend the autumn of his or her life with dignity at the top of the list," he added.
In his address on this anniversary, he stressed the cornerstone of human rights, which is dignity. He expressed the hope that, after the pandemic, we now realise that caring for the elderly is a shared responsibility of everyone in society and that the challenges of living in old age should have been addressed long ago. The Ombudsman is convinced that “reforms are necessary, and at their heart must be a system that prioritises individual support for the individual while promoting their full integration into the community.”
"As an advocate of deinstitutionalisation, it gives me great pleasure to visit places where it is (at least partially) working in practice. Your residential communities, formed in five houses in the municipality of Sevnica, together with the day centre, are certainly a shining example in this field," he praised, recalling that one in five Slovenians needs help from others because of their age or health condition. He also pointed out that the rights of the elderly are too often decided by others and that autonomous self-determination is a fundamental right of everyone, as is the right to spend one's old age in dignity or to be cared for in one's own home or in an appropriate institution. He thanked all those who had worked so far to develop Impoljica and wished those who had just become part of the story all the best on their journey of cooperation and working in a way that is tailored to the human needs of the residents or care recipients. "So, thank you to each and every one of you who are working to make as many moments as possible for everyone in Impoljica that are at least as good as those of today," he added.
