The 10-year long-term care (LTC) plan introduced by the government in 2007 lags behind schedule and is not in good shape, lawmakers told the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee yesterday.
The long-term care plan was designed to help Taiwan weather an anticipated crisis caused by a rapidly aging society, with the elderly projected to account for an estimated 14.6 percent of the population in 2018 and 20 percent in 2025, and an increase in the number of people with disabilities, which is expected to reach 1.21 million in 2031.
Under the plan, home and community-based and institutional LTC services are to be provided to those who need assistance to perform activities of daily living, including people who are 65 and older, Aborigines living in mountainous areas aged 55 and older, people with disabilities over 50 and elderly people who only need help with crucial daily activities, but who live alone.
However, while the plan is now well into its sixth year, lawmakers questioned the success of its implementation, saying that there are loopholes and unfinished work even in the first stage of the plan, which was supposed to be completed by 2011.
The first stage entails building elementary facilities and infrastructure for future service distribution, and training professional care workers.
To cater for the rising number of elderly people who need the service, about 30,000 more caregivers have to be operational by 2016, Department of Health Minister Chiu Wen-ta (邱文達) said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alicia Wang (王育敏) and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Chieh-ju (陳節如) said that only 30 percent of government-trained caregivers are delivering long-term care services, and the majority of them work in institutions and hospitals, showing that few are willing to be employed as home-based long-term care service providers.
“As the report by the Council of Labor Affairs shows, the outflow of [home-based] caregivers has a lot to do with the hard work and poor working conditions. They are paid hourly, in contrast to the stable monthly salaries paid by institutions and hospitals,” said Wang, who added that the current hourly wage of NT$180 should be increased.
Chen urged the government to consider the feasibility of keeping the accreditations of institutional and home-based long-term care services apart, which would then generate two separate pools of caregivers, instead of ending up with a lopsided distribution of human resources.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS