The “beds blocked” alarm in the hospital: one million elderly patients do not go home

They are called “bed blockers”, literally “bed blockers” they are frail elderly people (from 70 to over 80 years old). They often arrive at the hospital with chronic pathologies. Only then they struggle to go home, in the sense that – despite being healed – they stay in the ward, especially in Medicine, on average one week longer than expected. Because they don’t know where to go: the RSA won’t take them; they can’t stay at home because they often don’t have family members able to take care of it; other reception structures often have no place because there are not enough.