Swiss retirement and nursing homes to become more crisis-proof

Lessons need to be learnt, particularly for retirement and nursing homes and for strengthening mental health, the government said. Keystone-SDA

With a view to future pandemics and crises, the Swiss government wants to focus more on older people in care and retirement homes as well as young people. These groups of people had to endure particularly great suffering during the Covid-19 pandemic, it said.

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The government said this in two reports published on Wednesday. It received the mandate to do so from parliament with five postulates. These called for the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the elderly population and on the mental health of children and adolescents to be investigated.

The government said it wanted to better manage future pandemics and crises. Lessons need to be learnt, particularly for retirement and nursing homes and for strengthening mental health, it added.

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“Retirement and nursing homes as well as residential homes for people with disabilities must be better prepared for future pandemics,” said one of the reports. It is also important that individual mental health is fundamentally strengthened, it added.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

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