Cixi seeks to strengthen elderly care system
- Details
- Category: Ningbo District
- Published: Monday, 17 December 2012 09:03
Cixi's first high-quality elderly care demonstration project, Golden Heights Nursing Home, was dedicated on Monday. The project indicates that the government has successfully guided private capital into senior care industry. The nursing home will serve as a model for local nursing agencies and further strengthen Cixi's elderly care system.
"The keynote report to the 18th National Congress of the CPC pointed out that the policy makers should actively deal with the aging of the population and improve the elderly care services. In response to the report, Cixi government prioritized elderly care system improvement in an effort to benefit more elderly citizens," said a top official of Cixi municipal government.
According to an official in Cixi Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau, the speed of population aging in Cixi will reach its peak 15 years from now, which poses a huge challenge to Cixi's elderly care system. An elderly care system usually consists three parts, namely the family care, in-home care and agency care. Cixi proposed a pattern as follows: 90 percent of the family care, 7 percent community care, plus 3 percent of agency care.
According to the "12th Five-Year Plan" of Cixi, the city will achieve a high coverage of home care services on city and community level and build more than 30 elderly care centers by 2015. The elderly care agencies will be able to accommodate more than 3 percent of the elderly population. A number of elderly care service learning centers will be set up on city and township level.
Cixi's elderly home care services has played a leading role in the city’s elderly care system in the past three years and has been listed as a key livelihood project. Statistics show that Cixi has currently 280 home care service centers, providing services for 4,097 elderly people. Thirteen villages set up elderly canteen, and four villages even offer food delivery service to nearly 600 elderly citizens. There are 670 full-time working staff, 1,300 community volunteers, and more than 300 mutual aid teams working in these elderly care centers. The municipal government granted 23.244 million yuan in the catering, home care, home cleaning, health care, recreation, and other services. The effort has benefited nearly 60,000 elderly citizens in urban and rural areas, including 2,970 needy elderly and 1,937 empty nesters.
"Home care, supplemented with agency care services, will still dominate our elderly care system in the near future,” said an official from Cixi Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau. During the "Eleventh Five-Year" period, Cixi has granted 120 million yuan to renovate its elderly care agencies. Cixi has two state-level and 13 township-level nursing homes now. In the next two years, Cixi plans to grant 60 million yuan for an overall renovation of elderly care agencies. Cixi will continue to guide and encourage private business to participate in the development of elderly care service industry and open up elderly care services market.
