40% of caregivers, that is, of the people who take care of cancer patients, suffer financial hardship. Those who are most affected are the freelancers and the unemployed or on layoffs, but also fragile workers, that is, those with fixed-term contracts or flexible forms, and for different reasons also housewives and pensioners. 36% of caregivers who show severe economic hardship belong precisely to the category of flexible workers, 31% are inactive, 24% private employees and only 9% public employees. This is what emerges from the analysis published in the 13th Report on the welfare condition of cancer patients, based on the survey promoted by Favo (Italian Federation of Voluntary Associations in Oncology) and carried out by Datamining, in collaboration with Aimac, Int of Milan and Pascale of Naples.
The investigation
1,205 caregivers (57% women and 43% men) were considered, with an average age of 52 years. In the vast majority of cases, these are people who are related to the cancer patient by a family relationship (wife, husband, daughter, son, sister, brother or parent). In more than half of the cases the caregiver lives with the patient and the assistance provided concerns, in order of importance, accompaniment, moral and psychological support, relationships with the treating team, help in daily activities and in external ones and financial support. The average weekly hourly commitment is 42 hours and, in some cases, reaches much higher levels (up to 100 hours per week).
Declining income
The survey made it possible to detect very interesting data relating to the income, expenses incurred and the work commitment of caregivers. “Their income is? reduced, since they started taking care of the patient, in 324 cases out of 1,205 interviewed, on average by 29% “, explains Francesca Traclò, Aimac. Absences rank first among the causes of the decline in income, followed by job performance. The expenses incurred are indicated as a third cause, mainly those of transport, food, paid home assistance and psychological support “.
Freelancers vs employees
As can be easily understood, the analysis revealed how the types of workers where economic hardship is significant are made up of freelancers, unemployed or layoff workers, ‘fragile’ workers, or those who have fixed-term contracts or flexible forms of work. “It is necessary and urgent that the support measures to protect the working caregiver be strengthened by granting paid leave or leave, adapting working hours or justifying absences, measures now provided exclusively for employees”, he declares Elisabetta Iannelli, Secretary General Favo. “But it is even more urgent and can no longer be postponed that positive actions are put in place to support self-employed and freelance caregivers, so far dramatically lacking adequate protection except in terms of any minimum tax breaks or one-off economic contributions”.
Recognition of the caregiver figure
The budget law for 2021 provided for a Fund with an endowment of 30 million euros for each of the years of the three-year period 2021-2023, intended to financially cover legislative interventions aimed at recognizing the social and economic value of non-medical care activities. professional. Legislative interventions on the matter should make it possible to give a complete and stable discipline to the matter, providing a framework of homogeneous basic state interventions throughout the national territory. But, according to Favo’s data, to date, adding the resources not used in previous financial years and reallocated to the Fund, are 70 million euros unused, to be assigned, according to the priority criteria, to the caregivers of patients with very serious disabilities? and to the caregivers of those who have not had access to residential facilities due to emergency regulatory provisions proven by appropriate documentation.
The social function
The fear is? that by doing so, the classification of resources within a unitary system will no longer exist, and that the Regions use the sums by dividing them among the various beneficiaries, without activating serious pathways for taking charge and social security and insurance protection for caregivers. “A more advanced vision of the contribution of caregivers is needed – he explains Carla Collicelli, Cnr – in terms of social impact within the integrated health and social health system, which does not limit itself to rewarding the ‘voluntary nature’ of the activities carried out by the care provider, to the detriment of those who, forced by the lack of alternative services, have to intervene to assist a person in need of assistance by putting their private and professional life on the line. In other words, the model that does not take into account the inequalities of treatment, also linked to the type of work that the carer is forced to abandon, is decidedly inadequate “.
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