http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/as-senior-citizens-savour-care-homes/137658/ With increasing neglect by family and friends, coupled with the pressure of making ends meet, a growing number of elderly people are resorting to care homes to spend their final days on earth. Chiemelie Ezeobi writes The woman in the picture now lives at the Regina Mundi Home for the Elderly in Mushin, a Lagos community. She was abandoned by her family. "Isolation, discrimination, neglect and poverty are forcing elderly people to live a dismal life in care homes across the country," says Olubunmi Owosho, a social psychologist. At Regina Mundi Home for the Elderly, some of the people at the home were abandoned by their families in their old ages while some actually arrived there with the help of their family members who could no longer cope with caring for their needs. "It is important to make the elderly feel that they are still very relevant to the society. Some of them have worked for years and have contributed their quota to the society but were abandoned in their old age," says Anthonia Adebowale, a reverend sister. "Some have children whom we have to practically force to come and see them while others have irreconcilable differences with their relatives. "The elderly are often seen as the reservoirs of knowledge and the voice of wisdom whose fountain of experience are often needed to steer the ship of life. With the blessing of old age often comes the maturity to handle issues and therefore deserve to be supported and made happy and comfortable in the twilight of their ages," she explained. Reports suggest that there is evidence that the traditional practice of caring for parents began to erode under harsh economic conditions in urban areas across the country. For instance, there is absence of a social security system and only a minute percentage of the population older than 60 receives pensions before death. Analysts say, rapid urbanisation has displaced the

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9860430/Inheritance-stealth-tax-to-fund-care-for-the-elderly.html The Treasury is set to freeze the amount that people can inherit free of tax instead of increasing it in line with inflation. The allowance will be frozen at £325,000 despite George Osborne, the Chancellor, just eight weeks ago saying that he would increase the amount in two years. The rate will now not go up until at least 2019, according t The Sunday Times, meaning that thousands of families will be £95,000 worse off than if the allowance had risen. The measures would see 5,000 more people paying inheritance tax and are expected to contribute about £1 billion over the next five years towards the cost of care home bills for the elderly. Under those plans pensioners with savings of up to £123,000 are to receive state support with their care costs under Government plans. http://springhillcaregroup.net/

"Springhill Care Group - Spain's borrowing costs on its 10-year government bonds fell to the lowest level since January on Thursday. At its latest debt auction raised 4.8 billion euros and saw strong demand from investors for the bonds maturing in three and 10 years' time. Madrid has been able to more easily sell its bonds at lower rates of interest since the European Central Bank announced its bond-buying plan. Trader Ignacio Blanco with Bankinter said: "Over the last month and a half bond interest rates are down more than two percent, since Draghi spoke at the end of July. There was strong demand in the days before the auction and today too. They were buying bonds before, they continued to buy today, and the initial operations after the auction were good." Many analysts have warned Spain's borrowing costs could skyrocket to unsustainable levels unless Rajoy asks for an international bailout, at which point the ECB would start buying Spanish bonds. The country's economic crisis is exposing deep fault lines with the wealthy, but heavily indebted, region of Catalonia calling for tax breaks. Catalonia, which is in northeastern Spain, generates one fifth of the country's economic output and is home to 16 percent of Spaniards. More than half of Catalans say they want a separate state, and hundreds of thousands marched in Barcelona last week - the biggest such show of separatist fervor. The upsurge in Catalan separatism is founded on a conviction that Madrid is draining the region financially. The central government collects most taxation payments then redistributes them to Spain's 17 self-governing regions, which run their own schools and hospitals. Each year Catalans say they pay 16 billion euros more in taxes than the regional government spends. The region's debts have made the Madrid government's task of balancing the budget more difficult. Rajoy has threatened to intervene in regions that cannot control their budgets. Catalonia is li