Sixty phone calls were made to a new helpline aimed at encouraging the elderly and relatives to lodge complaints about residential homes’ services.

The main source of complaints remained food quality, according to a spokesman for the Parliamentary Secretariat for the Elderly.

Food quality also tops the list of complaints voiced by the elderly during the ongoing consultation process on minimum standards for residential homes.

When Parliamentary Secretary Justyne Caruana visited the Cospicua home last month, residents complained about the quality of vegetables and repetitive menus, saying they would like to be served chips once in a while.

Dr Caruana said she had looked into the complaints and changes were made where needed. However, she insisted, food offered in homes had to be healthy.

Another complaint that emerged during the consultation was lack of training by carers.

Dr Caruana said she was having talks with the Health Ministry to ensure carers were better trained and regulated. The idea was to set up a register so that carers who breached ethics or acted unprofessionally could be struck off.

To complement the consultation process, on August 29, Dr Caruana rolled out the free helpline 8007 2367, which is manned by secretariat staff who are also handling complaints made via e-mail on elderlyhomes-complaints.mfss@gov.mt.

“The secretariat has so far received about 60 calls via its new free phone service. The average amount of calls is about 10 per day. The e-mail service was less popular, which is understandable because older persons generally prefer to call rather than send e-mails,” the spokesman said.

At the moment, the government can only impose change in State-owned homes but when the minimum standards are in place a regulatory body will be set up.

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