More than half of Portuguese households that required healthcare and home support services were unable to avail of them last year, new data from INE, the Portuguese statistics body, has found.
The Survey on Living Conditions and Income (SILC) data indicated that as of last year, 6.1% of households – approximately 272,000 households in total – had at least one member requiring healthcare and home support services due to long-term physical or mental illness, disability, or old age.
Of these households, 81.5% had at least one older person in the home.
Financial challenges
The primary barrier to accessing healthcare and home support services were financial constraints, with 55.9% citing an inability to pay as the reason for not receiving services.
Close to a fifth (17.5%) meanwhile, reported that services were unavailable.
Of those that accessed paid professional services, 48.5% paid the full cost of healthcare and home support needs, 28.1% contributed partially, and in 23.4% of cases, expenses were covered by health insurance, social security, or other social protection schemes.
More than two thirds (68.7%) of those who paid fully or partially for services reported difficulty in covering the costs, INE‘s data showed.
Access to childcare services
The data also explored access to formal childcare services for children up to 12 years old, and found that as of last year, 94.7% of parents believed that their childcare needs were sufficiently met.
However, 5.3% of children in this age group required more formal childcare services, with 46.9% of parents citing affordability as the main barrier.
Some 49.5% of children received formal childcare services in Portugal last year. In 59.5% of these cases, parents covered the full or partial cost, while 40.5% accessed free services. Read more here.
