Tending needs of ageing population
Print Edition
WITH the number of elderly rising in Minhang District, the district has opened a pension agency to help its senior citizens with care in old age.
The Minhang Pension Agency Management Center opened on November 1. One of its goals is to oversee the district’s commitment to add 31 new nursing homes to the existing base of 45.
The first of the new homes, now under construction, will have 2,250 beds, with half of them available at no charge for the neediest residents.
There are 313,000 elderly in Minhang, and the number is expected to jump by 70,000 by the end of 2020.
Some of the homes will be run by social organizations, including the Shanghai Minhang Welfare Institution, Beiqiao Welfare Institution and Lianhua Welfare Institution. They will take only elderly who are registered residents of the district and who need higher levels of care. The Beiqiao Welfare Institution will specialize in care for Alzheimer’s patients.
Cao Fusheng, a vice director of Minhang, said the district has been at the forefront of care for the elderly since it was designated as a national pilot pension system district in 2014.
Community services are critical to aged care, he said. The district will continue to build new day-care centers for the elderly in housing estates. The aim is to create accessible facilities where communities of elderly can help support one another in a social setting and break the cycle of loneliness that affects many seniors living alone.
Community care centers that are currently operating but unlicensed will be brought up to fire safety, food hygiene and management standards.
Many elderly residents are grateful for the government attention to their needs. Dang Peirong, 92, said that she has benefited considerably from community services. A resident of the Pule No 2 Housing Estate, she wrote a letter of thanks to the Meilong Town government to express her appreciation for what has been done.
“I’ve been living by myself since my husband passed away, but community center staff workers frequently pay me visits,” she wrote. “They are so considerate. They bring me daily essentials like rice, a heater and gifts on holidays. Our housing estate is an old one, with rut-filled roads that make it uncomfortable for me when I have to be transported somewhere by wheelchair. But after reconstruction by Meilong Town, the estate is like brand new. I didn’t expect to see such changes happen in my time.”
Community committee secretary Xu Ruifang said locally based services are the most efficient delivery system to address the needs of the elderly. “After all, we are the closest people to them and are at hand to help if anything happens,” she said.
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