Caregivers: Italy's new pillars. There are nearly 2 million of them, mostly foreigners.

ROLE OF CARERS IN ITALY –

It is the great avalanche of a society where life expectancy has lengthened, but has also brought with it an exponential increase in difficult old age. In Italy, approximately 800 people are affected byAlzheimer And of these, nearly 90 percent are treated at home, within the family. The number could double within a few decades, and there are still no real and effective treatments for the dying neurons, only palliative drugs that can, in some cases, slow the progression of the disease, which is expected to last three to twenty years. The elderly person affected by a neurodegenerative disease needs everythingHe must be cared for 24 hours a day, he can't be left alone, and someone must feed him at mealtimes and help him go to the bathroom. In his eyes, sometimes lost in the void, there's always a glimmer of a longing for companionship, for bonds that are fading in the reality of everyday life. Thus, in many Italian families have become central, essential, the carers: We have 1 million 655 thousand of them and they have grown by 53 percent in the last ten yearsWho are they? Mostly women (82,4 percent), foreigners (77,3 percent), aged between 36 and 50 (56,8 percent).

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THE CARER, THE NOVEL BY MATTEO COLLURA –

And it is precisely a family assistant who is the protagonist of a novel by Matteo Collura (The Caregiver. Longanesi Editions) opens the door, with a series of twists and turns, to the microcosm of a family struck by the avalanche of a difficult old age. Professor Italo Gorini, a cultured, ironic man with a brilliant mind, lives in a wheelchair, wanders around the house, occasionally goes out, and has built his own universe of observation and memories. A widower, the professor is cared for, almost enveloped, by the affection of his sister Maddalena, his sister-in-law Giorgina, and his son Desiderio. This is Gorini's microcosm: the warmth of a family trying to warm the chill of an advanced and dark life, without prospects, dreams, and with the awareness that lack of self-sufficiency is a defeat of the human body that can last a long time. A very long time. But at the center of the professor's small world are not his close relatives, but rather her, the beautiful and diligent caregiver Paula Grigorescu. The appearance of a coincidence, which is not such, links the old man's past elderly and sick and his young collaborator: both lived in Libya, before fleeing after the arrival of Colonel Gaddafi who effectively chased foreigners, starting with the Italians, out of the country.

In the darkness of the professor's fading life, a light suddenly comes on, a flash. Desire, and even sexual pleasure, resurfaces with singular intensity for a man confined to a wheelchair. Gorini wants to possess Paula and, after some hesitation, begins to court her, even making obscene advances. All are rebuffed, gracefully and almost with pity, by the caregiver, who refuses to give in to her employer's pressure and barricades herself behind the presence of a phantom boyfriend. The story unfolds almost as if it were a miserable truism, with Italo Gorini's family providing a backdrop to his decline and ultimate defeat, until two dramatic turns of events occur. The first is the professor's subtle attempt to transfer his desire to possess the caregiver to his son. Thus, Desiderio is invited, with paternal authority, to seduce Paula, as if in this way Italo could gain revenge for the woman's refusal. But it's another defeat, even more stinging, because this time it's the son who rebels, offended and outraged, against his father's sinister designs. The second, even more dramatic, twist comes when the professor, furious at the series of losing battles, decides to fire Paula, and when he tells him, he learns that she is actually his daughter. The fruit of a night of sex in Tripoli, with a woman he's never heard from again. From that moment, the sick old man returns to his old age and his pain, with a mysterious joy, a new, authentic love, born of the discovery of his second daughter. Thus, a new family is born, with two brothers, whom he will accompany until the end of Italo Gorini's story (we'll leave that to the readers).

THE FIGURE OF CARERS IN ITALIAN FAMILIES –

Returning to the carers in today's Italy, to their irreplaceable role, and to the foreseeable progression (the number of family workers will rise, by 2030, to over 2 million and 100 thousand), it must be added that these figures are no longer to be considered only for the professional aspects, for the service of care and assistance which they offer in the face of a State that is completely absent in the protection of non-self-sufficient elderly people. No, Carers are now an integral part of our families. Like at Italo Gorini's house.

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