El Ciudadano
Original article: Abandono de personas mayores en Chile: ¿Qué dice al respecto la nueva Ley de Envejecimiento Digno?
Involuntary loneliness, lack of effective support networks, and various forms of physical, psychological, or economic abuse are issues linked to social abandonment, a concern specifically addressed by the Comprehensive Law on Older Persons and Promotion of Dignified, Active, and Healthy Aging.
This May (2026), the Constitutional Tribunal approved the enactment of this new Comprehensive Law, aimed at strengthening the inclusion, integration, and participation of older individuals in society.
Carolina Riveros Ferrada, a lawyer and professor at the University of Talca, explained that this legislation «has created a specific title addressing social abandonment and a judicial protection procedure through Family Courts, overcoming the limitations of treating these cases merely as domestic violence.»
«The legislative text incorporates a procedure to issue protective measures for older persons facing social abandonment, which is no longer viewed as a mere family issue or a private omission, but rather recognized as a legally relevant violation of human rights, in line with the Inter-American Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Older Persons, ratified by Chile,» the academic emphasized.
What is Social Abandonment?
The expert, who leads the Civil Society Council of the National Senior Citizens Service (COSOC-SENAMA), indicated that social abandonment can be understood as a situation where an older person is deprived of effective support, care, companionship, protection, or assistance, even when there is no direct physical aggression involved.
«Its severity lies in the fact that it can compromise the life, health, autonomy, dignity, psychological integrity, and social participation of the individual,» states Professor Carolina Riveros.
In this context, data such as the over 800 elderly individuals abandoned in hospitals across the country illustrate this concept, as these facilities end up addressing issues that belong to other subsystems: family, community, housing, dependency, mental health, social security, local networks, and legal protection.
Regarding this issue, the University of Talca specialist clarified that «hospital abandonment is visible, but it does not encompass the entire problem. It is the final symptom of prior phenomena: involuntary loneliness, poverty, family overload, feminization of caregiving, insufficient residential facilities, lack of home support, unaddressed dependency, and institutional ageism.»
Aging Is Not a Private Matter
While families hold legal and ethical responsibilities for care, food, assistance, and non-abandonment, these duties should not lead to an absolute privatization of dependency.
In this regard, the academic notes that «the family cannot be the sole protective entity against aging, illness, disability, cognitive decline, or poverty. The state’s obligation begins when dependency, vulnerability, or abandonment exceed the real capacity of the family network, when there is no family, when the family is negligent or abusive, or when the required care demands organized, permanent, and specialized services.»
«Legally, the family does not disappear, but the state assumes a position as an institutional guarantor: it must prevent, detect, intervene, coordinate services, ensure access to justice, and adopt protective measures. Family responsibility is primary in relational terms, while state responsibility is non-delegable in terms of fundamental rights,» Riveros added.
Finally, the Maulina educator concluded that «the Comprehensive Law forces us to view aging as a public policy issue: abandonment in hospitals and abuses, especially social and patrimonial, reflect systemic failures in care, recognition, and legal protection of older individuals.»
The Citizen
La entrada Elderly Abandonment in Chile: Insights from the New Dignified Aging Law se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.
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