At the end of February, the Czech Caritas CARES! 2019 country report on accessibility of services for vulnerable groups was presented at the European House in Prague, accompanied by an expert conference.
The Caritas network is the largest non-governmental provider of social and health services in the Czech Republic. More than 300 organisations associated in eight dioceses provide assistance to nearly 150,000 people a year. It provides about a fifth of the country’s health and social services and it is a key player in the fight against poverty and social exclusion. In addition to carrying out every day practical activates, Caritas also focuses on understanding policy analysis and on effecting subsequent system change.
Therefore, we try to engage in public debate on relevant social issues. We use both our own internal statistics and publicly available expert information. For example, the recent COP Light survey showed, among other things, that poverty is an important barrier to the exercise of guaranteed social rights. There is a paradoxical situation where people cannot get out of poverty because of their poverty.
An important source of information for our activities is the meetings of seven national colleges, which are composed of practitioners. It serves as a platform for the exchange of experience between the dioceses and the headquarters of Caritas. These colleges cover outpatient, field and residential social services. They are focused on care (nursing services, day care centres, homes for the elderly, homes for people with disabilities, etc.), prevention (social activation services for families with children, homes for mothers with children, homeless people, etc.) and services with expert advice. This information helps us to keep track of what is currently happening and what is being failed to solve. We often share them in case reports and they are indispensable for our advocacy activities. It should be added that for our advocacy work, the methodological support gained from the Caritas Europa Advocacy Learning Path has been significant.
Currently, we intend to focus mainly on the following topics: unsolved area of social and affordable housing, problems of over-indebtedness and unavailability of health services in the so-called social care borderland (services are not adequately designed to address the needs of people who need both social and health care).
Especially in the last two areas we have recently developed our activities significantly. For example, we have succeeded in improving the unfair terms for under-funded nurses in home health care. Here we managed to increase the reimbursement of services by about 30%, which will ensure nurses a decent income, help settle the situation in home and hospital care and prevent the outflow of nurses from this segment.
Together with partners from important non-profit organisations dealing with debt issues and human rights, we are taking steps to introduce the concept of territoriality within the amendment of the Enforcement Code. The aim of our working group, which was founded by Caritas Czech Republic, was to create and develop a common strategy, through which we will present and lobby the topic with important actors (politicians, journalists, officials) for changing the current situation.
The decision to concentrate on the debt area resulted from the situation in which the Czech Republic has been for a long time. There are more than 800,000 people under execution, and the system is currently set up in such way that debtors often fail to get out of this trap, despite their strong will. There are cases of unethical conduct by bailiffs and employers are overloaded with the associated administrative processes, discouraging them from employing them. The effects of over-indebtedness can bring uncertainty in old age and even lead to the disintegration of whole families. The lack of affordable and social housing is another area that has long been a problem for our society and which cannot be resolved without conceptual legislative anchoring. It also significantly affects other areas of life.
Currently, there are situations in the Czech Republic where people, despite all their efforts, fall through the social assistance system and reach the very edge, from where it is very difficult to help them. However, even in such cases we refuse to resign. Local promising projects, such as the Rescue Network of the Diocesan Charity Brno and Community Work in Peace Settlement in Ostrava, are important examples of social innovation. In the first case, we respond to the gaps in the public welfare system, in the second we focus on motivating people to actively participate in the community and finding confidence in their own abilities.
The presentation of the Caritas CARES! 2019 country report was a great opportunity for us to talk about our topics with a number of prominent personalities. For example, we agreed directly with some politicians to work together to bring about structural changes. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic has stopped everything for a while. Instead of advocating, we have to address newly emerging issues to ensure the operation of our facilities so that we can continue to provide our beneficiaries with the same amount and quality of care and assistance as before the pandemic and to help those who, due to the pandemic, now need our assistance. Although we face considerable uncertainty, we believe that the situation will return to normal over time and that we will be able to continue all our promising advocacy activities.
The Czech Caritas CARES! country report is available in English and in Czech.
