Around 200 elderly people, their care-givers and social security workers protested against a new government plan to end the existing care-hours program, in which elderly people are provided with professional care-giving services in their homes for a limited number of hours per week, and instead provide the families with cash. If the plan is approved as part of the new 2019 budget the meaning would be that each family would need to look after the needs of the elderly person alone. They would have to hire, train and pay for the help with no state support. Under the current system families who prefer to get money and not care-hours are already able to do so.
