A/HRC/26/46 G. Long-term care 41. The Chairperson Rapporteur of the 2014 Social Forum, who served as moderator of the panel on long-term care, introduced the discussion with a presentation of the Argentine long-term care model. She discussed the difficulties of providing long-term care for older persons, noting that the care burden often fell largely upon women. She emphasized the importance of social pensions and universal public health care, which could reduce that burden. In Argentina, efforts had been made to move the care burden to the public sphere by providing unemployed persons with the necessary training to be caretakers. That addressed employment issues and allowed many older persons to remain in their homes. For those who could no longer live on their own, efforts had been made to develop appropriate care institutions. There, the informed consent of the person was critical, as was the proper monitoring, maintenance and care of the facility and its charges. Efforts had to be made to ensure that all older persons could age with dignity and, to the fullest extent possible, depending on their circumstances, with autonomy. 42. Erica Dhar, Senior Advisor for the AARP Office of International Affairs, discussed the analysis by AARP of the costs of caregiving for older persons in the United States. The study found that there were over 42 million family caregivers in the United States, whose paid work had been reduced, as a result of their obligations, by an average of 41 per cent, making their unpaid contributions worth around US$450 billion. Ms. Dhar noted that, with the population continuing to age, the unpaid care burden would rise. She cited the need to improve upon the Affordable Care Act and recent efforts in a number of states to further improve the social welfare system for long-term care and reduce the burden of unpaid carework. In order to finance long-term care and to ensure its adequacy, AARP advocated for, inter alia, improved affordability and access, choice of setting and provider, quality of life and quality of care, support for family caregivers, and effective transitions and organization of care. 43. Claudia Mahler, a senior researcher at the German Institute for Human Rights, discussed long-term care in Germany from a human rights perspective. Inhumane conditions had been prevalent in private homes, including lack of autonomy for older persons and instances of caregivers working daily 12-hour shifts. In 2001, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights had expressed serious concern over those conditions and recommended urgent measures for improvement. The Institute had focused on those issues and produced a study in 2006 on the social human rights of older persons. Despite that, significant problems still persisted in the care of older persons, both in family care and in institutions. That was particularly true in the case of older persons with dementia. Ms. Mahler called for further public debate to promote a rights-based approach to long-term care that would permit all older persons a life of human dignity. 44. Maude Luherne, Policy and Project Officer at AGE Platform Europe, presented AGE Platform’s efforts to promote a rights-based approach to long-term care for older persons, including the European Charter of the rights and responsibilities of older people requiring assistance and long-term care. AGE Platform was a network of over 160 organizations representing more than 30 million older persons. It supported a holistic approach to the health of older persons that encompassed prevention, rehabilitation and enablement, cure and care, including end-of-life care. In the European Union, approaches to long-term care were highly variable between countries but common problems related to inadequate coordination of health and social care, financial pressure, lack of support for family care-givers, quality of care and elder abuse. AGE Platform, in its European Quality Framework for long-term care services, called for a common analysis and vision to address those issues, increased participation by older persons in identifying needs and solutions, better coordination and exchange of information in order to improve long-term care systems in Europe and older persons’ quality of life, and a rights-based approach to long- 12