94-year-old patient fights hospital TV fees in Spain
A 94-year-old patient in a Catalan hospital refuses to pay to watch television during her stay. Her story exposes the digital divide facing elderly people in Spain.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Rosita's campaign against paying for TV in hospital
Rosita Rochina is 94 years old and has spent three months in a public hospital in Catalonia. She talks to her son when he comes to visit, but the long hours drag without Pasapalabra, the news or a celebrity show. Her room has a television, but the TV service costs extra. So she has decided to launch a campaign to refuse to pay that surcharge. It is the story of an elderly woman who cannot understand why, to have some company from a screen during a hospital stay, she has to dig into her pocket.
The reactions were not long in coming. The most practical one comes from the digital divide angle: if her son brings her a tablet and finds YouTube for her, problem solved. But that is proposing a solution from the sofa of someone who masters streaming. A 94-year-old woman, used to switching on the TV with a remote, is not going to learn to navigate digital catalogues in the middle of her recovery. Technology is wonderful until it puts you on the other side of the screen.
Some go further and suggest charging for food too: 5-6 euros a day, deducted from her pension. An idea that reduces the patient to a customer and turns the right to care into a consumption voucher. On the opposite side, there are plenty of people who suspect the whole thing is a media stunt. If it is, it has achieved something difficult: getting a real problem — the isolation of hospitalised elderly people — onto the agenda without wearing the suit of a technical report.
Rosita's campaign is not about technology or budgets. It is about whether a public hospital treats an elderly person as a human being or as a budget hotel stay. For now, the answer remains in the corridor, waiting for someone to pick up the remote.
Rosita Rochina is 94 years old and has spent three months in a public hospital in Catalonia. She talks to her son when he comes to visit, but the long hours drag without Pasapalabra, the news or a celebrity show. Her room has a television, but the TV service costs extra. So she has decided to launch a campaign to refuse to pay that surcharge. It is the story of an elderly woman who cannot understand why, to have some company from a screen during a hospital stay, she has to dig into her pocket.
The reactions were not long in coming. The most practical one comes from the digital divide angle: if her son brings her a tablet and finds YouTube for her, problem solved. But that is proposing a solution from the sofa of someone who masters streaming. A 94-year-old woman, used to switching on the TV with a remote, is not going to learn to navigate digital catalogues in the middle of her recovery. Technology is wonderful until it puts you on the other side of the screen.
Some go further and suggest charging for food too: 5-6 euros a day, deducted from her pension. An idea that reduces the patient to a customer and turns the right to care into a consumption voucher. On the opposite side, there are plenty of people who suspect the whole thing is a media stunt. If it is, it has achieved something difficult: getting a real problem — the isolation of hospitalised elderly people — onto the agenda without wearing the suit of a technical report.
Rosita's campaign is not about technology or budgets. It is about whether a public hospital treats an elderly person as a human being or as a budget hotel stay. For now, the answer remains in the corridor, waiting for someone to pick up the remote.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (27 replies).
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