China News Service, Beijing, March 9th (Reporter Xiang Jing) In response to the "silver hair wave", "actively responding to population aging" has become a national strategy.
However, the elderly care service that has received much attention is also facing problems such as the imbalance between supply and demand, especially for the elderly with disabilities and diseases, the challenge of providing for the elderly is even more severe.
In the supply of elderly care services, how to understand the "pain points" of the elderly's life?
During the two sessions of the National People's Congress in 2023, many deputies to the National People's Congress paid attention to the topic of elderly care services and called for the creation of a more refined and comprehensive "elderly-friendly service circle" so that they can "depend on themselves".
Adding elevators to old communities to solve the difficulties of home care
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, as of the end of 2022, China's population aged 60 and over will be about 280 million, accounting for 19.8% of the national population, and it is expected to exceed 400 million by 2035.
Home care is the main way of providing for the elderly in China.
However, the problem of going upstairs and downstairs in the old community has stumped many elderly people.
Zhang Tianren, deputy to the National People's Congress and secretary of the Party Committee of Xinchuan Village, Meishan Town, Changxing County, Huzhou City, said in an interview that a large number of multi-storey old residential areas built before 2000 have a common feature-there is no elevator.
The ensuing "pain of climbing the ladder" has become a prominent problem in an aging society.
In Zhang Tianren's view, it is necessary to solve the "pain of climbing the ladder" of the elderly as soon as possible.
He mentioned that it is necessary to improve policies and regulations, and further clarify the legal basis for the installation of elevators.
At the level of the central government, legislation should be implemented as soon as possible on the installation of elevators in old residential buildings, so that the addition of elevators to existing residential buildings can be legally followed; local governments should also formulate specific guidance or implementation measures based on the current situation of regional development.
"Technical innovation should be encouraged, and technological research and development should be strengthened in the standardized design of additional elevator projects, prefabricated assembly construction, integration of elevators and shafts, elevator energy saving, and elevator intelligence." Certain preferential policies can be given in the process of production and promotion to provide guarantee for the addition of elevators to existing residences.
Focus on building care institutions for Alzheimer's patients
Paying attention to elderly care services is a proposition of the times and a call for people's livelihood.
Statistics show that among the elderly aged 60 and over in China, there are about 15 million dementia patients, of which 10 million are Alzheimer's patients.
A large number of disabled elderly people pose challenges to healthy aging.
"Alzheimer's disease leads to a high proportion of disability, and patients have a strong demand for life care and medical care." Zhang Zhang, deputy to the National People's Congress, deputy chairman of the Jiaxing Municipal Committee of the Peasant and Labor Party, director of the internal medicine department of Jiaxing First Hospital and director of the Department of Internal Medicine Qi has been paying attention to this field for a long time. During his interview, he said that the current elderly care system for Alzheimer's disease still has problems of uneven development and limited coverage. The ability is not high, and the contradiction between supply and demand of nursing services is prominent.
In Zhang Qi's view, it is necessary to build an elderly care service system for Alzheimer's disease from three aspects: the construction of professional nursing staff, the construction of professional nursing facility facilities, and the integration of medical and rehabilitation care.
"It is recommended to strengthen the planning and layout of care service facilities for the disabled elderly, and give priority to ensuring the land use needs of care institutions for the disabled elderly. At the same time, it is necessary to allow rural collective construction land to be used for the construction of care institutions, and to stimulate the participation of social forces." Zhang Qi also mentioned that from In terms of team building of professional nursing staff, it is necessary to make full use of the resources of colleges and training institutions to ensure the stability and long-term nature of the professional nursing team.
Cultivate professional talents so that the elderly can rely on "medicine"
In the aging process, elderly care service talents are increasingly required by the industry.
Li Xiaokun, deputy to the National People's Congress and president of Wenzhou Medical University, said frankly that the construction of China's elderly health service talent team has not yet formed a sound development, especially the shortage of high-quality professionals, lack of professional ability, and high turnover rate.
He suggested that the top-level design should be strengthened, and the cultivation of high-quality elderly health service personnel should be accelerated.
As a representative from a medical school, Li Xiaokun believes that it is necessary to optimize the structure of disciplines and specialties and innovate the integrated training system for talents.
For example, a high starting point optimizes the professional structure of geriatric medicine disciplines, including geriatric medicine as a first-level discipline major enrollment at the undergraduate stage, and expanding the enrollment scale of geriatric medicine majors at the master's and doctoral stages; the system planning is integrated from "college education-standardized training-continuing education" A professional talent training system; combined with market demand, the curriculum highlights the characteristics of the elderly and geriatric diseases, and builds high-standard professional education resources integrating production, learning and research.
Indeed, to support the stable happiness of the "silver-haired people", it is necessary to let the elderly have "medicine" to rely on.
According to Chen Wei, deputy to the National People's Congress, vice president of Quzhou Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and vice chairman of Quzhou City Committee of Jiusan Society, traditional Chinese medicine can play a role in preventive health care, such as building a four-level service network for preventing and treating diseases at the city, county, township, and village levels. Integrate it into grassroots health management, family doctor contracting and other service content, and establish a service system covering the whole life cycle of TCM treatment and disease prevention.
"It is recommended to effectively combine preventive care services with elderly health care, promote elderly health care institutions to cover preventive care services, and vigorously popularize traditional Chinese medicine health care knowledge, including Tai Chi, Health Qigong (such as Baduanjin) and other suitable for the elderly Healthy exercise can effectively maintain the quality of life of the elderly." Chen Wei said.
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