East China’s Jiangsu province will strive to make rural elderly care services more inclusive and accessible, according to the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Rural Elderly Care Services recently issued by several provincial departments.
Pu Shilin, 78, lives a regular and fulfilling life in the nursing home in Jiangning Sub-Street of Nanjing.
More than ten years ago, because he had no children and no source of livelihood, he checked into a nursing home near his home.
"It has changed a lot here. We live comfortably with air-conditioners and TV sets. Nurses are on call, so we are really enjoying our life here." Pu Shilin, Senior in a Nursing Home in Jiangning Sub-street of Nanjing said.
At the end of 2018, Jiangning Sub-Street Nursing Home of Nanjing introduced a professional team for management.
In the past four years, the nursing home has renovated its hardware facilities and made its nursing team more and more complete. The elderly can be treated in nursing homes with minor illnesses, and transferred to large hospitals for serious illnesses.
"After the renovation, the five-guarantee elderly have been better cared for and at the same time we will provide the surplus pension resources to more elderly people in society." He Cuihong, Director of Civil Affairs Office of Jiangning Sub-street, Jiangning District, Nanjing said.
There are nearly 1,000 rural nursing homes in the province. 194 nursing homes have introduced social forces to carry out public and private construction.
Jiangsu will encourage all regions to operate private rural nursing homes at government’s sponsorship, and areas where conditions permit can explore the establishment of county-level state-owned elderly care service enterprises to extend professional elderly care services to village-level neighborhood mutual aid points.
"The nursing home can give the elderly in our village a 10-minute elderly care service circle." Liu Wentao, Secretary of the Party Committee of Songnan Village, Shaxi Town, Taicang City, Suzhou said.
Jiangsu will rely on administrative villages to build village-level elderly care service facilities such as neighborhood mutual aid points and rural nursing homes according to local conditions. By the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan", all administrative villages in the province will have at least one home-community elderly care service site in a bid to benefit more elderly people.
