Corona Diaries of Aging and Family Care in Italy

Abstract

This paper focuses on the experiences of home care for elderly people collected during the first phase of the pandemic in Emilia-Romagna, Italy. The Italian response to the virus has been fragmented so far, due to differences in the way the healthcare system is managed, according to regions and the regulations of individual local healthcare units. Emilia-Romagna is one of the wealthiest areas in terms of its welfare system and is associated with a long-standing tradition of a community-care approach targeted to the prevention of chronic health diseases. The pandemic also posed threats to regions such as Emilia-Romagna causing the interruption of semi-residential care services, community-based health programmes and support services to home care. The text uses daily-life fragments to show how a small, interconnected group dealt with family care for elderly people. By showing how the pandemic met with pre-existent fieldwork relationships, the article discusses the relationship between chronic diseases, forced isolation, and care activities. This text offers a broad understanding of the family care system, which includes also the care provided by home-care workers. The text shows how community acts of care and reciprocity played an important role in filling the gap left by institutions and public care services. The pandemic just worsened the already existing social inequalities in care, which cannot be masked by the rhetoric on active aging and family care. These ideas need a serious engagement with structural reforms and cannot be completely left to individual capacities or informal acts of communitarian values and reciprocity.