Düsseldorf/Bochum (dpa/lnw) – More and more older people in North Rhine-Westphalia are dependent on social assistance. The State Statistical Office announced on Tuesday in Düsseldorf that spending on care assistance rose sharply by 14.1 percent to almost 1.2 billion euros last year. Social assistance expenditure for basic security in old age and in the case of reduced earning capacity increased by 7.8 percent to almost 2.1 billion euros, as the state office also announced with reference to data from the North Rhine-Westphalia Ministry of Health.
The German Foundation for Patient Protection spoke of a fatal development and warned the federal government that there was an urgent need for action, which continues to exist. “Care first makes you poor and then it turns people into social welfare recipients. That is an undignified perspective for millions of people in their old age,” said the board of directors of the foundation, Eugen Brysch, on Tuesday of the dpa.
It’s not about full financing, but the pure care costs should be borne 100 percent by the care insurance, he demanded. Brysch accused Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) of not tackling this challenge since taking office. “Increasing inflation will particularly affect those in need of care,” predicted Brysch, referring to rising costs for wages, accommodation, investments and food.
According to earlier information from the state office, around 84,100 people in NRW received help with care at the end of 2020. That was 4,400 (5.5 percent) more than at the end of 2019. Almost 90 percent of the recipients lived in institutions. The recipients of the benefit were on average 79.3 years old.
Almost 292,000 people in NRW received basic security benefits at the end of last year. More than half of them had reached the age limit and received basic security in old age – that was 4.3 percent more than a year earlier. The mean age was 74.4 years.