China News Service, March 7 (Xinhua) The second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference held its second plenary meeting on the morning of the 7th, and members made speeches at the meeting.
Ma Jiantang, deputy director of the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and former party secretary and deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council,
gave a speech entitled: Let the people-centered sunshine shine on every disabled elderly person.
Ma Jiantang: General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China that it is necessary to "implement the national strategy of actively responding to the aging of the population, develop elderly care and elderly care industries, optimize services for the elderly who live alone, and promote the realization that all elderly people have access to basic elderly care services."
At present, my country's population is aging.
In 2023, my country's population aged 60 and above will be 297 million, accounting for 21.1% of the total population. Among them, disabled (dementia) elderly people account for about 1/5, totaling about 50 million people.
It is difficult for these disabled elderly people to live alone, and the family members who take care of them are physically and mentally exhausted and overwhelmed. Many elderly people have experienced a decline in their quality of life and loss of dignity in life due to lack of care.
Therefore, better meeting the care needs of disabled elderly people, reducing the burden on their families, and improving the quality of life of the elderly have become prominent issues that need to be solved urgently in my country's elderly care service system.
First, we must increase the supply of long-term nursing care through multiple channels.
The long-term care of the disabled elderly in my country is mostly borne by family members, and there is an extremely shortage of long-term care personnel with professional knowledge.
Suggestions: First, provide necessary training to willing migrant workers and unemployed people, and then accurately provide it to disabled elderly people in need.
The second is to expand the enrollment scale of medical and health, long-term care, medical and nursing care majors in vocational colleges, cultivate medical staff, professional caregivers, rehabilitation therapists, medical and nursing care personnel who are willing to enter the long-term care industry, and meet the needs of middle- and high-income families who have lost their jobs. Meet the care needs of the elderly.
The third is to increase support for family caregivers and care referral agencies, and continuously improve the professional skills of long-term care personnel and the standardization level of referral agencies.
Second, we must vigorously support communities in providing care services to disabled elderly people.
Affected by the income level and culture of most families in our country, home care will still be the main way to care for the disabled elderly.
It is recommended that local governments set up community care service stations in newly built communities and support old communities in transforming corresponding places or rented nearby houses into community care stations. The community service stations will send people to households to provide medical services and life services to some disabled elderly people. The government provides corresponding tax incentives to community care institutions.
Third, we must encourage the production and use of assistive devices for disabled elderly people.
In order to facilitate the lives of disabled elderly people and reduce the work burden of caregivers, it is recommended that: first, encourage scientific research institutions to develop more smart products for disabled people to provide more intelligent and inclusive solutions for disabled elderly people.
The second is to develop a special catalog of disability assistive devices.
my country released a catalog of rehabilitation assistive devices for the first time in 2014. However, rehabilitation devices focus on the recovery of patient functions, while disability assistive devices focus on assisting the human body functions of disabled people. Therefore, a special device catalog is needed to guide production.
The third is to implement a low-tax policy for companies that produce disability assistive devices. We can also encourage qualified local governments to issue targeted consumption coupons to encourage families with disabled elderly people to purchase and use them.
Fourth, we must promote the expansion of the pilot scope of long-term care insurance.
Since the pilot launch of my country's long-term care insurance in 2016, it has been expanded to 49 cities.
However, there are too few pilot cities, and the coverage of insurance in pilot cities is limited to urban employees; the financing channels are single, mostly transfers from personal accounts for medical insurance and financial subsidies; there are too few benefit items, and most of the payment targets are limited to people with long-term severe disabilities and people in medical institutions , nursing services in specialized nursing homes.
It is recommended to move from pilot cities to all cities and towns as soon as possible, from urban workers to all urban residents, and to rural areas in qualified areas; actively explore diversified financing channels, and establish individual payment, unit payment, medical insurance co-ordination fund transfer, and government as soon as possible. A multi-party financing mechanism for financial subsidies and public charity funds; payment projects must be based on scientific actuarial calculations and scientific disability level assessment, and include appropriate home care, moderately disabled hospital care, and nursing home care into the scope of payment.
(Compiled based on online text live broadcast)