Caring for Carers: an Analysis of Informal Care Policies in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Informal care comprises unpaid care services provided in the private sphere of the home, as part of pre-existing relationships with relatives, spouses, friends or neighbours. Informal care is often the only form of long-term care which many persons in need of care can access at all, and is a significant, and internationally increasingly widespread component of long-term care.ii As the formal long-term care system in Bosnia and Herzegovina is underdeveloped and plagued with many shortcomings, primarily manifested in the form of limited access to services and insufficient allowances for the users, the burden of caring for care-dependent persons has been shifted for the most part into the sphere of informal care. Yet informal carers are completely neglected in long-term care policies and receive no support – whether in the form of services or financial compensation – to make the task of providing care easier or improve the informal carers’ well-being.
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