When in September 2020 Minister Speranza appointed the Commission for the reform of health and social care for the elderly population, the epidemiological picture of the Covid 19 pandemic was dark and full of unknowns. Above all, the worrying observation that dominated at a global level was that the elderly, particularly those in residential facilities, represented the main victims of the disease. In nursing homes, retirement homes and RSAs, a real massacre was taking place, aggravated by the conditions of isolation in which the sick lived and, unfortunately, died. Therefore, it is also a tragedy for families, children and grandchildren who would not have been able to see and hug their loved ones again due to the separation imposed in these environments.

The pandemic has brought out the contradiction of a society that on the one hand knows how to extend people's lives, but on the other fills them with loneliness and abandonment. Covid-19 has eliminated thousands of elderly people because we had already abandoned them. And we owe them a very serious debt. It is essential to remove at the root the serious shortcomings of an unbalanced, unjust, burdensome healthcare system, which itself causes so many victims. We need to overturn a paradigm. But this is only possible if we have a new vision of old age.

The first chapter of the Charter, dedicated to the protection of the dignity of elderly people, establishes two important principles: «1.1 The elderly person has the right to determine himself in an independent, free, informed and conscious manner with reference to life choices and the main decisions that concern him. 1.2 It is the duty of family members and those who interact with the elderly person to provide him, due to his physical and cognitive conditions, with all the information and knowledge necessary for free, full and conscious self-determination".

The second chapter, in its first two articles, also outlines rights and duties for responsible assistance by stating that «2.1 The elderly person has the right to participate in the definition of care paths, types of treatment and to choose the methods of providing care health and social care. Health and social care institutions and workers have the duty to present to the elderly person all the options available for the provision of health and social care".

The incipit of the third section is entirely dedicated to the guarantee of a life of relationships, the freedom to choose the form of coexistence, the fight against discrimination and the support of those who take care of the elderly, stating that «3.1 The elderly person has the right to have an active relationship life. 3.2 The elderly person has the right to live with whoever he wishes. 3.3 Institutions and societies have a duty towards elderly people to avoid any form of imprisonment, ghettoisation, isolation which prevents them from interacting freely with people of all age groups present in the population. 3.4 It is the duty of the institutions to guarantee support to families who have elderly people within them and who intend to continue to encourage cohabitation. 3.5 Institutions and societies have the duty to guarantee the emotional continuity of elderly people through visits, contacts and acquaintances with their relatives or with those with whom they have emotional…

These three concerns have found great space in the Commission's reform proposal. The basis of the care continuum that we have designed, in fact, is made up of network and monitoring services for the most fragile and the oldest, the 4 million over 80s who we would like to see all involved. I report here an excerpt from the summary document: «These (network) services essentially consist of a multidimensional evaluation procedure per year (thus bringing us closer to the European standard of many virtuous countries) which allows us to define, where necessary, a personalized care plan , and therefore the entry into the continuum and also into digital tracking. Three further elements characterize this low intensity but maximum diffusion service: