Seniors are most often victims of fraudsters and tricksters who want to take advantage of their difficult situation, including financial – assessed in an interview with PAP Minister for Senior Policy Marzena Okła -Drewnowicz. In her opinion, changes in the law are necessary that will allow the support and security of older people.
PAP: You meet with seniors, incl. on the occasion of public consultations of the draft law on senior vouchers. Can you say based on these meetings that fraud and extortion are the real problem of older people?
Marzena Okła-Drewnowicz, Minister for Senior Policy: Yes, this is a huge problem that has ever arranged in recent years. And in many areas, because we can talk about the fraud of apartments, but also about the fraud “for a granddaughter”, “on a policeman”, and about network crime. Older people are exposed to danger from each side. According to data from the National Debt Register between 2015 and 2023, their debt doubled – three to six billion zlotys increased. This is used by tricksters and criminals who, under the cover of the offered financial support, conclude with seniors unfavorable contracts.
PAP: Using the vulnerability in the law?
Mo-D.: Yes. In recent years, there has been a lack of a system review that would allow them to be identified. By taking the office, I applied to all ministries asking for information about what they are doing for the elderly. I also started cooperation, which results in specific actions.
PAP: What are the actions?
MO-D.: I think that it is necessary to increase awareness. The senior must know where he can get information, what rights he has or how he can use the Internet safely. I am after meetings at the Police Headquarters, during which we talked about securing seniors against cybercrime. We will also set up a team that will develop the appropriate methods for this purpose. I also work with Deputy Minister of Justice Zuzanna Rudzińska-Bluszcz. In May we will start with the pilot of legal education. Coaches will provide information on how to dispose of property, willing, donations, life imprisonment, but also about domestic violence, threats in the network and what is the “granddaughter” method. The pilot will cover the province. Świętokrzyskie – is a region with the highest average age in Poland.
PAP: Deputy Minister Rudzińska-Bluszcz is also working on the draft act on instruments of supported decision making. This solution is to replace the institution of incapacitation.
MO-D.: Increplication is not a solution. For this, a model of supported decision making could be a facilitation and support for those older people who affect dementia – according to OECD estimates in 2021. In Poland, dementia diseases occurred in sixteen per thousand people in the population. But I would like to use the new solution to be used by seniors who have no signs of the disease. That they would have such a “safety valve”.
PAP: would this solution help them to secure them against, for example, apartments?
MO-D.: We are increasingly dealing with such situations, when foreign, unrelated, non-related people, take care of maintenance, take over the apartments of the elderly. I talk about it with the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Policy to clarify the provisions related to the functioning of social assistance in the direction of the obligation to provide care in exchange for the apartment.
PAP: On Tuesday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk ordered you to prepare recommendations on the protection of seniors against “extortion and ordinary tricksters”.
MO-D.: I am at the stage of preparing them in different areas, I work multifaceted. Potential dangers result from, among others lifetime or life contract – not regulated so far. You have to come back to this. The National Notary Council is also an important body, because it is the notary public that contracts are concluded, for example, selling an apartment.
PAP: In February we talked about your idea to solve the problem of the so -called prisoners of the fourth floor, i.e. the elderly people who live in the higher floors of buildings, and which – due to advanced age or health problems – cannot leave their own apartments. At what stage is this project today?
MO-D.: On Monday, the government programming team will be considered my application for entering this project in the list of legislative work. Today, local governments can propose a moving to the ground floor on seniors living in municipal apartments on the upper floors. This is not possible for those who have ownership apartments. Senior rental could change this, while ensuring the senior behavior to the full property right. Whether anyone will use it or not – this is his decision. However, I am a supporter of giving people the right to choose.
Katarzyna Czarnecka (PAP) talked
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