The specialized social area covers children, young people, adults and the elderly with disabilities and mental disorders.
– Some of the citizens who are worst off in our society do not get the help they are entitled to. There is a huge inequality here, says chairman of the Social and Health Sector in FOA Torben Hollmann.
FOA is coming up with the study, up to the National Association of Local Authorities (KL) and the government on Tuesday to start negotiating the local government budget for next year.
In the survey, 64 percent of FOA’s members with more than five years of experience in the field answer that the citizens they care for in residential institutions, in housing and psychiatry have a greater need for support today than five years ago.
56 percent answer that they experience that the citizens receive less help than before.
According to Torben Hollmann, one cannot unequivocally place the responsibility.
– There is a responsibility on the part of the municipalities, but there is clearly also a responsibility on the state table, because it unfortunately requires finances to get fixed, says Torben Hollmann.
According to Torben Hollmann, the municipalities’ responsibility is to ensure proper specialization, and they must be willing to spend the money it takes to help a citizen.
– When a municipality has a citizen they do not have an offer for, the citizen is sent to Copenhagen, for example. It’s very expensive. So when they have to save, they pull the citizen home again, even if they do not have an offer.
– We would never stop sending a cancer patient to Rigshospitalet, because he lived in Lolland Municipality, says Torben Hollmann.
The chairman of KL, Jacob Bundsgaard (S), does not quite know that picture, but he is happy to enter into a dialogue with FOA.
However, he completely agrees that more money is needed for the area.
– The specialized social area is our main priority in the economic negotiations.
– We have a burning desire to raise the quality of the specialized social area and very much like broadly, he says.
Source: The Nordic Page
