Older people want to live at home or, if that is not possible, like at home. This is the conclusion reached by the population studies on quality of life that have been carried out, and it is also the challenge that, in Gipuzkoa, the Provincial Council, the Matia Foundation or municipalities such as Usurbil are trying to respond to. This municipality of 6,200 inhabitants is rehearsing a small revolution in the field of care that, on the one hand, is generating a whole ecosystem of care that involves the entire municipality and, on the other, is launching the type of endowments that can allow its users that maxim of living at home. The Egurtzegi center is the example, a residence that replaces the cold rooms with small apartments. This pioneering and innovative model is largely connected to a perspective that will have an impact beyond Gipuzkoa, thanks to the commitment made between the Ministry of Social Rights and the autonomous communities to promote a new model of residences for the elderly.
The new Egurtzegi residential model, which looks at the Nordic countries, exemplifies how residences should be in the coming years and sets a precedent that will hardly allow going back. The center offers 110 lodgings for 127 people, in public places arranged with the Administration, through small single or double apartments.
“It is the fruit of many years of research, of knowledge acquired about the concept of good care and the application of knowledge. The people who live in Egurtzegi do not have a room, they have a home, which is located within what we call a coexistence unit. These people will live in their home, which maximizes the privacy of people compared to traditional residences, but at the same time there are spaces to share. The center allows for life in the home, but also outside: in the center itself and in Usurbil, which is building a care ecosystem”, explains Erkuden Aldaz, researcher and co-director of the Matia Institute, dependent on the Matia Foundation, non-profit entity with 140 years of history.
Its residents have begun to occupy their new homes this week, which have a living room, bedroom, a small kitchen and an adapted bathroom. The center also adds common spaces for people who require care and adds services such as a day center, a hairdresser or a cafeteria with a terrace.
Egurtzegi, in any case, is not an exclusive center for those who can afford it. On the contrary, it is subject to the same residence decree as the rest of the centers in Gipuzkoa and both access and public prices, linked to the socioeconomic profile of the applicants, work according to the same parameters, set by the Provincial Council. The goal is for it to be, basically, the model that residence halls that offer public places in the future try to imitate.
As important as the center itself, however, is the context that surrounds it. This endowment is part of a paradigm shift that is being tested in 12 municipalities in Gipuzkoa. Through the Zaintza HerriLab strategy, promoted by the Diputación, these towns are developing what they call “local care ecosystems”. The concept may seem bombastic, but the truth is that it translates into a radical change in the way of approaching the care of the elderly.
Usurbil is one of the municipalities that is most involved in this transformation, and Maider Irisarri, a social worker, is in charge of implementing the local care ecosystem. “The lengthening of life expectancy and, in general, population aging have brought us to a point where neither families alone nor public institutions on their own can manage care, which today is long-term. It takes collaboration between agents, coordination of resources, involvement of the community and, ultimately, changing an obsolete care model”, she indicates.
The new care model that is emerging in Usurbil and other municipalities is the result of a meticulous participatory process in which it has been essential to listen to the people who demand care and their families. From there, the municipality is working on a flurry of dynamics and initiatives that seek to centralize knowledge about the needs of each elderly person, form groups of volunteers to accompany the elderly and combat loneliness, improve the coordination of services and socio-sanitary resources or promote dynamics of participation with the local associative fabric.
The objective is for care to occupy a central and transversal space. In the recently concluded town festivities, the inclusion of the elderly has been vigorously sought, and for some years intergenerational activities have been promoted that regularly unite schoolchildren and the elderly. In December, the municipality will inaugurate an intergenerational housing building in which 5 elderly people and 11 young people will live together in independent apartments, but with common areas, creating a network that serves to combat loneliness and connects with the rest of the dynamics implemented in the municipality. .
The Matia Foundation is taking part in this creation of ecosystems that is spreading throughout Gipuzkoa -also promoting different cutting-edge endowments-, and Erkuden Aldaz considers that this path "has no turning back": "The Egurtze residence is an innovative resource, but you need the community to activate. It is a total change of model that should guide the future and that will allow us to continue learning and innovating. It is a model that, adapted to each town or neighborhood, is fully exportable. At this point, it would be inexcusable to go back to doing what has been done in the last 30 years.”
