Building a long-term care system for the elderly: Family responsibility, government leading social participation

To solve the problem of insufficient family support capacity, the government leads social participation

Xia Bing, the heroine of the TV series Hot Mom, has a mother-in-law suffering from Alzheimer's disease. On the one hand, the audience is distressed by the hard work of Xia Bing taking care of her mother-in-law, on the other hand, it is very sad to look at her mother-in-law who is seriously ill.

In traditional Chinese society, the care of the elderly is mainly undertaken by the family, and the family's responsibility to support the elderly is the first. However, with the influence of population policy and the intensification of cross-regional social mobility, the traditional pension and security system are encountering great challenges. According to the results of the fourth sample survey of the living conditions of urban and rural elderly in China, the proportion of empty nesters has reached 51.3%. Song Xinming, a professor at the Institute of Population Research at Peking University, said, "From the disabled and mentally handicapped elderly themselves, their care, medical care and rehabilitation require strong professional skills. The establishment of long-term care security system can not only reduce the burden on families, but also enable disabled and mentally retarded elderly people to get better care. In addition, it can not only improve the quality of life of disabled and mentally retarded elderly people, but also has great significance in the development of China's pension service system."

Wang Jianjun, executive deputy director of the National Office for Aging, pointed out that the establishment of a long-term care security system, to correctly deal with the "three relations", that is, the relationship between the government, society and the market, should encourage conditional local first try, on the basis of local practice and exploration, to establish a unified national long-term care security system.

"Building a long-term care security system requires the cooperation of all relevant government departments. Policy making, funding models, evaluation of service quality and supervision of service processes all need to be led by government departments." Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher Tang Jun told reporters.

13 Departments jointly issued the "Notice", which fully reflects the importance of the elderly care service industry, and also shows that all departments have a full understanding of the need to form a joint force to promote the long-term care security system.

There are already places to explore. For example, Shanghai, the earliest city in the country with an aging population and the deepest degree of aging. By the end of 2015, the city's registered elderly population of 60 years old and above reached 4.36 million, accounting for 30.2% of the city's registered population. At the end of 2016, a new elderly care institution - "Lujiazui Comprehensive Care Home for the Elderly" was established in the prime area of Pudong, Shanghai. The government provides community resources and social forces provide more efficient and professional elderly care services, which are well received by many elderly people.

Chen Yuebin, director of the elderly work Department of the Shanghai Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau, said in a recent interview with the media that Shanghai is trying to open up the elderly service market and build a diversified elderly service system. "The government mainly meets the basic elderly care services, including the" bottom "of the poor people; To provide elderly care services based on social forces; And let more enterprises "play the leading role" to provide market-oriented elderly care services."

Social forces that fill the gap in elderly care facilities and service teams usher in a new window

Compared with developed countries, China has entered the aging population in less than 20 years, during which time, social wealth accumulation time is short, per capita income is low, and there are still deficiencies in professional service team, reasonable and effective supply of facilities and fund raising, facing old age before rich and old before unprepared.

"China's disabled elderly have exceeded 40 million, 96% of whom are sick and need long-term care. According to the international general requirements, the ratio of disabled elderly and nursing staff is 2:1, but the domestic situation is about 10:1, a difference of 5 times. Even if the ratio of ordinary elderly care service personnel is 3:1, the national shortage of elderly care talents is more than 10 million." At the bi-weekly consultation forum of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in October 2016, Su Hua, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, used a set of figures to show the urgency of strengthening the construction of professional personnel for elderly care services in China.

The lack of long-term care beds and the unreasonable pre-approval of elderly care institutions have also become the bottleneck for social forces to actively participate in the elderly care service industry.