In the show Politično (Political) on the public television, the Minister of Defence Matej Tonin said that the Minister of Labour Janez Cigler Kralj had announced an additional thousand beds in the homes for the elderly. But since the left-wing opposition cannot tolerate the success of the current government, the host and the other guest, Luka Mesec, immediately tried to hint at the idea that the high number of available beds was merely the result of the many deaths due to covid. The editor of the newspaper Večer (Evening), Matija Stepišnik, obviously also believes that to be true. “it is incredible how quickly good deeds can be misinterpreted,” Cigler Kralj pointed out, and the “independent” journalist was also criticised by the Prime Minister Janez Janša. The fact is that the media have been covering up the incompetence ofthe left-wing governments for a decade now – those same left-wing governments that, in the case of homes for the elderly, did not build a single new facility during their time in power, and are now attacking the current government, which is trying to solve the problem of the homes for the elderly in addition to the epidemic. This is absolutely perverted.
“It is incredible how quickly good deeds can be misinterpreted. My team and I immediately started working on strengthening the field of care for the elderly. The public tender for concessions will bring 1,280 additional places in homes for the elderly. Moreover, the public tender for day centres and temporary accommodation will bring an additional 396 available places. Our goal is to build five new state homes for the elderly and complete two more,” the Minister of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, Janez Cigler Kralj, wrote to the editor of Večer, Matija Stepišnik.
Namely, Stepišnik published a tweet, writing that the Minister of Defence Matej Tonin managed to do the impossible, as he is boasting about the available space in the homes for the elderly. Stepišnik believes that the government of Janez Janša botched up in the second wave of the epidemic, which resulted in brutal death statistics. “There is no God (except for Janša), and in the name of their crooked politics, you are allowed to say anything…” he remarked and somehow paraphrased Dostoyevsky and others. In a show on the public television that was broadcast yesterday, Tonin said that the Minister of Labour had announced thousands of extra beds in the homes for the elderly, while the Levica party only managed to get 300 new beds in the last ten years. As expected, the host of the show hinted that the higher number of available beads was the result of many deaths due to the virus, and judging by his smile, the coordinator of the Levica party Luka Mesec agreed with her.
Instead of building homes for the elderly and hospitals, they threw the money at Rog and Metelkova. The Prime Minister also responded to Stepišnik’s comment, writing: “Look at the “independent” journalist who was as silent as a mouse for the past ten years, while his godparents threw money at Metelkova and Rog, instead of building homes for the elderly.” At the beginning of the month, while answering parliamentary questions, the Prime Minister already pointed out that Slovenia had the fastest growth in construction in Europe last year, but not because we are so very good at it, but more due to the fact that not much has been done in the previous years. The money was instead invested in Metelkova and Rog. “We are about to face the third wave of the epidemic, but we expect we will be able to make up for this fall from last year. We will be even better than predicted,” Prime Minister Janez Janša announced. It is also a fact that ever since the beginning of the current government’s term when Minister Cigler Kralj took over the Ministry, great changes have finally begun to happen in this area. Namely, the Minister set the regulation of the field of integrated care for the elderly as one of his key priorities at the very beginning of the term, as this is something that has been extremely neglected in the last decade, even though Slovenia has a large ageing population.
Sara Bertoncelj
