The provision of care homes for the elderly is reaching crisis point with people waiting to get into a state-run home outnumbering residents, statistics show.

There are 1,107 people on the waiting list to be admitted to one of the eight government homes, which together have 1,000 beds.

A total of 822 people are waiting to take one of the 1,129 beds at the government’s St Vincent de Paul home.

Government homes for the elderly have an occupancy level of 98 per cent while St Vincent de Paul is nearly full with only seven empty beds at the time the figures were compiled.

Homes for the elderly owned and run by the Church are also almost full with an occupancy rate of nearly 95 per cent, the same rate as privately-operated homes.

These figures are worrying, said the President of the National Association of Pensioners, Moses Azzopardi.

“Smaller houses should be built in the village cores.” He added that if community services had to be improved, waiting lists would be considerably reduced. The crisis is also a concern for Parliamentary Secretary Mario Galea, who said the government was taking action to provide more space where the elderly who need constant care can live.

The government was currently modernising Zammit Clapp Hospital in St Julian’s, which is expected to create 100 beds for people who require long-term care similar to that provided in a home for the elderly.

Such patients, most of them elderly, are waiting to be moved to other institutions, such as old people’s homes or rehabilitation centres.

Zammit Clapp Hospital had originally been earmarked as an oncology hospital – taking over the role of Boffa Hospital.

But the government later decided to build the new oncology centre on the grounds of Mater Dei Hospital.

“The government is weighing all possibilities to provide more services for the elderly,” he said.

The state last year paid nearly €3 million to send 370 elderly to private homes through a Public Private Partnership agreement.

The five homes they were sent to were Casa Arkati in Mosta; Villa Messina in Rabat; Rose Ville in Attard; Casa Serena in Bugibba and Central Home in Mosta.

The Church has 16 homes for the elderly and last year spent €202,383 on running them. Together they take a total of 728 people.

According to the statistics, there are 690 people living at these homes.

The government has nine homes for the elderly, including St Vincent de Paul which alone hosts 1,129 people. The other eight together take 1,000 people.

The problem of lack of space in homes for the elderly is exacerbated by the fact people are living longer which means that vacant beds are hard to come by, according to Health Minister Joseph Cassar.

Speaking in Parliament last week, Dr Cassar said that when he graduated in 1990, the rate of deaths at St Vincent de Paul was almost one a day whereas now it was down to one every two or three weeks.

This was positive, he said, but it meant beds becoming vacant were few and far between.

Dr Cassar said it was not a question of how many homes the government could build but the problem was more of having available the necessary caring staff.

The minister said that when somebody lived to a ripe old age, sometimes as long as 90 and 95, their children could be 70 and needed help themselves, so they could not cope with bedridden parents. It was much more efficient to have carers working in an old people’s home than running around to visit private homes. There are currently 211 occupied beds at Karin Grech Hospital – 100 per cent occupancy – with two types of patients: those needing rehabilitation, not only senior citizens, and others waiting for beds to become vacant elsewhere.