China advancing eldercare service industry in coping with the "Grey Wave"

GUANGZHOU, China, Oct. 12, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- "I have a very happy and colorful life here, and I want to live to a hundred years old," said an old gentleman surnamed Li, who is over 90 and has been living in the Golden Heights Nursing Home in the Chaoyang District, Beijing for four years.

At an average age of over 85, Li and over 280 elders are being cared under the integrated service including living, dining, playing, nursing and treatment. "The combination of medical treatment and eldercare is the featured service offered by Golden Heights," said an official of Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau, adding that the service is the very eldercare mode being promoted by the local government.

Aging society is a common topic in China. As early as in 2000, the Chinese government found that Chinese who are over 60 and over 65 accounted for 10.2% and 6.96% of the total population respectively during the fifth national census. The two indexes mean that China is becoming an aging society. This aging phenomenon is particularly obvious in big cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

According to Head of the Information Office of the People's Government of Guangdong Province, since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, President Xi was aware of the new problems due to the aging population and has urged the Party and the government to pay more attention to the eldercare program. Xi called for developing eldercare service and the related industries in many occasions so as to set up the country's eldercare service system, industrial standards, facilities and human resources that incorporates home, community and institution. Therefore, China's eldercare service industry has developed quickly in the past five years and the sector has become a blue chip for investors.

Golden Heights Nursing Home combines traditional eldercare pattern with health care. In Golden Heights, its community healthcare center not only provides service to the elderly who live in the nursing home, but also offers visiting diagnosis and treatment, pharmaceutical administration and clinical care to the aged in the neighborhood. Expenses which meet the specification can be covered by medical insurance. Golden Heights also works with community nursing service networks to make its service available to other areas.

"This will also be an important pattern in Beijing's eldercare service that attracts special attention from Guangdong's Civil Affairs Department," said Head of Guangdong Provincial Government's Information Office.

In tandem with the booming eldercare service industry, lack of nursing staff has become the bottleneck restricting the industrial development in China. In September 2015, the first vocational school was established in Beijing for training eldercare professionals, and a training system is gradually taking shape in the country ever since.

SOURCE Information Office of Guangdong Provincial Government of China