Elderly people and their relatives, who want to lodge a complaint about services offered in residential homes can now do so through a new helpline, Parliamentary Secretary Justyne Caruana announced yesterday.

The free helpline (8007 2367) will be manned by staff within the Parliamentary Secretariat for the Elderly who will also be handling complaints made through e-mail address elderlyhomes-complaints.mfss@gov.mt.

The helpline and e-mail were launched as part of the ongoing consultation process into the drawing up of minimum standards for elderly homes.

Dr Caruana said she had visited various homes over the past weeks and most complaints centred around the way carers handled and treated residents as well as the quality of the food.

She was in discussions with the Health Ministry to come up with a way to ensure carers were better trained and regulated.

The idea was to set up a register so that those carers who were in breach of ethics or acted unprofessionally would be struck off.

She said she had also received several complaints about food and had inspected kitchens in various homes and asked for changes to be made where necessary. Dr Caruana said the government could only impose change in State-owned homes but, when the minimum standards were in place, a regulatory body would be set up.

Following the public consultation, which will end next month, the standards will apply to all 37 government, Church and private homes that currently house more than 4,000 elderly people.

These standards include drawing up individual care plans for residents and offering three full meals a day with varied menus.

Dr Caruana also announced that in yesterday’s edition of the Government Gazette, the government launched a call for expression of interest for the setting up of small residential homes for disabled people in the community.

The calls were very open-ended and the government was looking at various possibilities to offer these services, she said.