What are home helpers and carers?

Home helpers are there to assist you with daily tasks and enable you to live independently in your own home, as you would want. Personal and medical care can be provided along with cleaning services, while household chores and administrative tasks can be completed to meet the basic needs of day-to-day living. myLIFE explains just what’s involved.

Due to accident, illness or disability, or just because ageing makes some tasks harder, anyone can find themselves dependent on others. This is particularly true of senior citizens. If you recognise this description and are finding your daily routine increasingly difficult, then you should give serious thought to requesting a home helper.

Services concerned

Whether they involve actual medical care or just some assistance with household chores, home-help services are intended to help the elderly with their day-to-day living. Home-help professionals support, treat, comfort and watch over the physical and mental wellbeing of the individuals who call on them. Each situation being specific, the solutions provided are customised to each person’s needs. Many different types of home help and care exist:

• • therapeutic, postoperative, palliative or nursing care (taking samples for analysis, giving injections, setting up drips, changing bandages, dispensing drugs, checking blood pressure and sugar levels, etc.);
  • hygiene (help going to the toilet and getting dressed);
  • basic care (help preparing meals, with drinking and eating);
  • home maintenance and household chores (laundry, washing up, gardening, DIY, etc.);
  • administrative tasks;
  • appointments (doctor, pharmacy, shopping);
  • physiotherapy sessions (as part of nursing care insurance);
  • social interaction (listening, talking, entertainment);
  • etc.

As well as giving practical support, your home helper can offer a shoulder to lean on or a sympathetic ear.

As well as giving practical support, your home helper can offer a shoulder to lean on or a sympathetic ear.

The aim

The whole range of services on offer has a clear aim: to let you keep living at home independently, in the best possible way, by providing whatever help you need. Whether caring, accompanying, facilitating, discussing, listening or supporting, home helpers try to improve your physical and mental wellbeing. Often, it only takes a bit of help for you to carry on living at home. By making you feel better about your body and mind, home helpers improve your daily living and let you contemplate a future in your own home, as you would want.

Where can I find quality service providers?

Numerous help and care providers are available for our senior citizens in Luxembourg. To find the one best suited to you or your parents, why not contact COPAS. This confederation represents all organisations providing help and care services to the elderly in particular.

It has the contact details of various home help and care networks. There are currently 13 help and care networks, as well as many providers of local services and useful information on teams specialised in palliative care.

To help you move forward

There are numerous questions to be asked when you hire a home help professional. Here are some of them, with links to useful sources of information so that you can find the answers that apply to your situation.

• • Do I have to sign a contract with a home helper? Yes, drawing up a written employment contract is mandatory unless you’re getting a friend or relative to help you informally.
  • What steps must I take to employ someone? The easiest way is to contact the Joint Social Security Centre (CCSS), which will ask you to complete a private household membership form before taking care of certain formalities (setting a gross wage, calculating tax deductions, etc.).
  • How much should I expect to pay? It all depends on the services and solution chosen. If you recruit a home helper directly then, as with any other employee, your home helper is entitled to at least the minimum wage, paid bank holidays, paid leave and a notice period. You can calculate your costs with a simulator. If you go through a help and care network or an agency, then you choose the services together, as well as the length of time, and the amount is calculated accordingly.
  • Can I reclaim money spent? No, unless the service is covered by nursing care insurance. However, under certain conditions, it is possible to apply a flat-rate deduction on your tax return.
  • What is covered by nursing care insurance? Some services, such as nursing procedures, personal hygiene, help preparing and eating meals, and getting around, may be covered by nursing care insurance or sickness insurance to ease the financial burden when you are classed as dependent. Always check, rather than assume that you are covered.

Help and care networks are available to answer your questions and assist you with the steps to be taken.

It’s not always easy to find answers to every question about home help. Fortunately, help and care networks are available to answer your questions and assist you with the steps to be taken. Contact them to find out more.

Elderly people can seek daily assistance from home helpers to get washed and dressed, prepare meals and take medicine, maintaining their independence and wellbeing. There are still a few steps to be taken once you’ve found the right partner.