It is imperative to speed up the formulation of the elderly care service law
Zheng Gongcheng: Legislation is urgently needed to change the shortage of elderly care talents
In recent years, our country has moved towards a deeply aging society, and the demand for elderly care services has been increasing day by day. Zheng Gongcheng, member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, president of the China Society of Social Security, and professor of Renmin University of China, recently accepted an interview with a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily and pointed out that it is necessary to speed up the formulation of the elderly care service law.
The changes in my country's population structure can be clearly seen from the two curves with opposite trends. The rising curve represents the increasing proportion of the elderly: as of the end of 2023, the proportion of people aged 60 and above in my country has reached 19.8% of the total population; the declining curve represents the weakening of the family’s elderly care function: In the past 20 years, the number of households in my country has The average number of people dropped from 3.44 to 2.62. At the same time, the proportion of elderly people living alone and empty nests has increased significantly, which means that the need for basic elderly care services for the elderly has become increasingly urgent.
In the past few years, Zheng Gongcheng has conducted research in many places across the country and found that the current supply of elderly care services is insufficient, the structure is unreasonable, the service quality is low, and the needs of the elderly at home cannot be met. At the same time, the operation of elderly care institutions is difficult, and the construction of professional nursing teams is difficult. Seriously lagging behind, these are all realistic reflections of the development of the elderly care service industry.
On the one hand, the supply of elderly care services for disabled elderly people and empty-nest elderly people is insufficient or of low quality. On the other hand, some elderly care institutions are in operating difficulties and even go bankrupt. Zheng Gongcheng analyzed that there are many reasons for the above phenomenon, and the lack of legal restrictions and regulations at the national level is an important reason. "Elderly care service behavior and its supervision system are in urgent need of legal regulation."
Based on a large number of field surveys, Zheng Gongcheng believes that in the context of everyone enjoying a pension, the biggest worry of the elderly is that the need for nursing services after old age or disability cannot be solved.
Passing legislation can provide clear and stable safety expectations for the elderly, while providing stable policy support and guarantees for investors and practitioners in the elderly care service industry, and providing a platform for handling various relationships in the operation of elderly care services, especially between institutions and the elderly. Provide legal basis for relationship issues with their families.
However, the reality is not satisfactory. The current policy gives priority to ensuring the service needs of the elderly with special needs (mainly former rural five-guarantee households and urban orphans), reflecting the government's bottom-line responsibility of "guaranteeing basics." In the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, due to vague empowerment and lack of specific explanations for "extremely poor" and "priority protection", "there is no basis for what kind of elderly care services the elderly can receive under what conditions and through what procedures." Zheng Gongcheng said.
Due to the lack of legal regulations and large differences in policies between regions, it is difficult for market entities to enter the elderly care service industry, and it is even more difficult to develop well. For elderly care service institutions, their rights and interests are also unclear. Land use, registration and filing, construction and operation, exit mechanisms, etc. all need to be restricted by specific regulations. As a specific provider of elderly care services, rights and interests in capital investment, tax incentives, emergency response and insurance, dispute settlement and legal aid, etc. It has not yet been clarified, which leads to obstacles to the sustainable operation of elderly care institutions and the difficulty in chain development.
In addition, the responsibilities of elderly care service supervision subjects are not standardized, and the institutional barriers of fragmentation need to be broken down urgently. In practice, relying on the civil affairs department to coordinate multiple departments often leads to independent management, and "treating the head for a headache and the foot for a sore foot" when encountering problems.
Zheng Gongcheng believes that due to the lagging legislation on elderly care services, the lack of unified legal norms, and the fragmentation of departmental management responsibilities, the qualification training and certification of elderly care nursing staff are chaotic, which is not conducive to the growth and quality improvement of the nursing talent team.
During his research, Zheng Gongcheng found that there is a serious shortage of nursing staff in the elderly care industry in my country. Each elderly care institution or facility has less than one qualified professional nursing staff. Most of them are middle-aged and elderly women from rural areas or urban suburbs. In addition, the wages in the elderly care service industry are generally low. The turnover rate of nursing staff remains high, forming a vicious circle of "insufficient professional talents, low remuneration, low service quality, low public trust rate, small business scale, low profitability, and operational difficulties." "This situation urgently needs to be changed and guided through legislation." Zheng Gongcheng said.
It is worth noting that in the development process of the elderly care service industry, projects with significant industrialization characteristics such as elderly care real estate and senior tourism have emerged. Due to the lack of unified regulations, goods and services including rehabilitation, medical care, nursing, housing, education, employment, elderly products and other products have been included in the elderly care service industry. However, the most basic elderly care service content has not received good attention and specification.
In this regard, Zheng Gongcheng reminded that the premise for the development of the elderly care service industry must be to improve the social welfare of the elderly as the starting point and goal. "It is imperative to speed up the legislation of elderly care services in my country."
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Hu Chunyan Source: China Youth Daily