A representative from the British Consular Directorate’s Projects and Collaborations department, Ray Davidson, travelled from London to inquire about APEMEX, the Mijas Town Hall’s programme to help elderly foreigners. On Thursday 2nd of February, he attended the regular meeting held by its members: the councillor for Foreigners, Arancha López (Cs), the councillor for Social Services, Hipólito Zapico (PSOE), and representatives of groups such as Age Concern, the Red Cross, the Lions Club of La Cala, Age Care and BBF. 

The aim of this programme is to help elderly foreigners with administrative procedures, transport to medical appointments, emergencies, nursing care, translation or legal services or any other type of problem or circumstance that may arise in their daily lives. 

Following a case of a homeless person who wanted to be repatriated to his country, the British Consulate’s interest in this programme was triggered. “It is a source of pride for us to see that this work and this group is of great interest to the British consulate, and it will now serve as a reference to be used as an example in other municipalities and countries”, said the councillor for Foreigners, Arancha López. 

For his part, the councillor for Social Services, Hipólito Zapico, said “personally, I was surprised that the consulate has taken this initiative to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and that they have sent a person here expressly to learn more about this programme, which seems to be original and does not exist in other places, and to use it as a model”. 

Cases attended to

Thanks to the APEMEX programme, at least six cases have already been attended to. “At that moment we saw that at certain times there had been cases of elderly people who had led an independent life, but who for various reasons now have to be cared for because they have lost their independence”, explained councillor López.

In this regard, Zapico added that “they are people who arrived in Spain when they had recently retired, have spent 20 or 30 years here and are now between 80 and 90 years old, some have Alzheimer’s, some dementia, or have lost mobility and these citizens are not within our system of care. They need attention and in order to provide this, we have relied on the different associations of foreigners in the municipality”, he concluded.

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