Aging China faces elder neglect (4)

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By Xinhua writers Zhou Yan and Pan Qiang (Xinhua) 20:56, October 11, 2013

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CARING FOR ELDERS

As the one-child policy downsizes families and the younger generation leave their homes for personal development -- with rural dwellers moving to cities and urbanites going to big cities or overseas -- filial piety, the traditional cornerstone of China's elder care, is inevitably giving way to public services.

Many senior citizens, particularly parents of only children, are now ready to spend their retired life in nursing homes, an abrupt shift from traditional beliefs that living under the same roof with elderly parents was an essential part of filial piety.

While the change has been partly prompted by social progress and increased income, it is also a compromise between Chinese traditional lifestyles and the practical problems of the stressed "one-child" generation, who have difficulties coping with work, children and aging parents. Yet finding a good nursing home is by no means easy.

Even Beijing has only 82,000 beds for senior citizens, compared with an estimated demand between 120,000 and 150,000, according to figures provided by Beijing's Civil Affairs Bureau. The figure is based on 2.8 beds for every 100 senior citizens aged at 60 or above.

To seek care at nursing homes is even more difficult in the remote western provinces. In Guangxi, many privately run nursing homes are having a hard time leasing land.

"Our contract ended this summer and we are forced to move," said Tan Yuejun, head of Bailing Nursing Home on the outskirts of Nanning. "The land owner wants to renovate the place into a store. Residents in the community also consider the nursing home inauspicious, as most of the residents are sick and may die."

The nursing home accommodates 47 people aged from 70 to 90. Most of them are bedridden and too sick to move about. Tan is still struggling to find a new home for the institution.

Guangxi's 1,485 nursing homes have a total of 15,000 beds. Most of them are short of nurses, as the tough job and the low pay, averaging 1,500 yuan a month, is unappealing.

"The government should make preferential policies to draw investment into senior care industries," said Wei Caiming, head of Golden Sunshine, one of the biggest nursing homes in Nanning. "These should include lease of land at lower prices and prolonged terms of leases."

Besides nursing homes, Han Yuanli, chief of civil affairs in Guangxi, said government-funded senior care associations should be set up in rural areas to deliver services on the doorstep.