Browsing by Subject "care home"

The aging population is a global phenomenon and at the same time a challenge to an increasing number of states. Different countries have opted for a various kind of welfare state models with varying emphasis on public and private provision to confront the situation. Since the collapse of socialist system, the society, and with it the social sector including the elderly care, in the Russian Federation has experienced substantial transformations and fluctuations. It is facing also an increasing number and share of aged population, and the welfare mix is still forming itself. The aim of the thesis was to observe the private providers in the elderly care in this context: what kind of picture the care homes construct of themselves and how they can be positioned in the Russian welfare mix. The material of the thesis consists of the service and facility descriptions on websites of 26 private care homes in the city of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region in the Russian Federation. The corpus was traced with help of search engine searches, and finally selected based on the defined location. The social constructionism and welfare state theories served as frame and approach for the analysis. The thesis thus paid attention to the local circumstances and audience alongside the global context. The texts were analysed with keywords derived from the globally acknowledged document, The Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing, which expresses the guidelines for actions to guarantee the rights and appropriate care of elderly persons. The method used for keyword analysis was CADS, corpus-assisted discourse studies, specifically the chosen software was AntConc. A closer case study was conducted of four care homes. Also, a short summary on the financial possibilities and limitations for a private facility was presented. The results of the analysis showed that the private care homes, which included both those belonging to a chain and those operating as separate, independent units, in the focus area produced in their primary message to the public an image which correspond the targets proposed by the Madrid plan. The image given was that of a high-quality and safe care home which respects the individual needs and agency of an old person. The national characteristics were still apparent in the descriptions. The private care homes also saw themselves as a needed actor in the Russian welfare mix on the side of the public provision complementing it and offering a prime option for selected, wealthy clients.