Twenty years of the Junta's Teleasistencia lifeline
Andalucía's telephone assistance service for the elderly and disabled now helps 245,235 people in different parts of the region
José Luis Piedra
Monday, 21 February 2022, 13:07
It is now 20 years since the Junta de Andalucía set up its telephone assistance service to help people who are elderly, disabled or dependent on others, and 245,235 citizens in the region now benefit from this type of assistance. The red button which people wear on a cord around their neck has become an essential service and it is highly valued by its users, not only for use in emergencies but also as a method of support and monitoring. Many of them think of the staff at the other end of the phone as members of their family, and the regular contact helps to prevent them feeling lonely and isolated.
In the two decades since the service began, the staff have handled over 84 million phone calls and attended to more than half a million users, with an average of 14,000 calls a day. During the lockdown in 2020 the number of calls increased considerably: there were over six million, compared with 5.2 million last year.
Around 70 per cent of these calls are made by the staff for monitoring purposes, because the majority of users are over the age of 80 and the average age is 82. As women tend to live longer than men, they make up the majority of users and account for 79 per cent of the total.
During these 20 years it has become apparent that one of the growing problems which affect elderly people is loneliness, because 61 per cent of users of this service live alone. The head of the Teleasistencia service in Andalucía, José Vargas, says that technological advances in the socio-health sector and the Salud Responde app mean that his staff can make, cancel or change medical appointments for the users, and chase up appointments with specialists. This is one of the most appreciated parts of the service, which the users have scored 9.6 out of 10 in surveys.
The Teleasistencia service began with just 16 employees, who attended to 120 people. There are now 600 members of staff and the service, which has bases in Seville and in Malaga, is available 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
