New agency in Seychelles provides home care for elderly

The mission of the Agency is to encourage and provide quality service for elderly and disabled clients in the comfort of their homes. (Seychelles Nation)

(Seychelles News Agency) - A new private agency has opened in Seychelles that specialises in providing professional home care not only for the elderly but other persons who require respite care.

The Care Home Empowerment Agency (CHEA) was founded by cousins Manette Nourrice and Rita Nibourette Sorkpah, who has a similar agency in Germany where she resides.

The founders of the agency recounted the need to have such service after having experienced the stress of caring for their ailing mother and how hard it was to provide round-the-clock care for her.

According to Manette and Rita, their mission is to encourage and provide quality service for elderly and disabled clients in the comfort of their homes.

"We want a model of care which in turn allows our clients to live their best possible life," explained Rita. 

The agency has started recruitment and said that they already have a pool of people who are ready to provide the service to those in need. These include home care providers who will work on both a full time and part-time basis, a majority being nursing professionals.

The mission of the founders is to encourage and provide quality service for elderly and disabled clients in the comfort of their homes. (Ministry of Youth, Sports and Family) Photo License: CC-BY

Nourrice added that CHEA cares for their clients holistically, and what they will offer is based on nursing scientific standards.

The Minister for Youth, Sports and Family has welcomed this initiative, saying that this is the kind of Public Private Partnership -- that is needed in the country.

Marie Celine Zialor said that the services that CHEA are providing are in line with the ministry strategy which includes providing more quality services for all populations including the elderly and those living with disabilities

"Our vision is to bring as many services as possible, quality services for different groups of our families, and when we look at our demography we see that there is a group that needs home care: be it that they are elderly, or that they are differently-abled or they are sick for some time," explained Zialor.

Zialor added that the services agency will provide much-needed relief as a mobile respite service for families who have to give round the clock care to their loved ones which are very stressful.

The Minister is encouraging people to make use of this new service which charges on an hourly basis. CHEA is also offering services on a nightly basis, during weekends and public holidays. Rates start at $10 per hour with overnight and public holiday care rates being slightly higher.

Currently home care service in Seychelles -- 115 islands in the western Indian Ocean -- is being administered by the government through the Social Protection Agency and around 12 percent of the 99,000-person population is elderly.