The state must ensure the quality of life of the elderly persons is increased so that these live with dignity, said people’s ombudsman Mihai Cotorobai. According to him, unified social security systems are needed to provide services, to ensure appropriate living standards and to promote solidarity among generations, IPN reports.

The world’s population is growing older. In Moldova, the population is also ageing, owing to such social factors as the lower birth rate and migration of the active generation. “If the current trends persist, the elderly people wil represent about 33% of the population in 2050,” said Mihai Cotorobai.

The ombudsman drew attention to the fact that the social impact of the recent rises in tariffs and prices is disastrous because the incomes and social benefits are rather modest and the purchasing power is low. “The consecutive price increases affect the living conditions of the elderly persons even more dramatically as these lived at the poverty line already. In the annual reports, the Office of the People’s Ombudsman repeatedly warned that about 98% of the pensioners receive a pension that is lower than the minimum subsistence level,” he stated.

Mihai Cotorobai called on the competent authorities to step up efforts to immediately identify possibilities of helping the population, particularly the socially-deprived groups of people, so as to overcome this crisis situation and to prevent the recent price rises from leading to deeper poverty.