China to improve home-based elderly care: minister

BEIJING, March 8 (Xinhua) -- China will offer improved services to elderly people receiving home-based care, as most Chinese senior citizens prefer to live at home, Minister of Civil Affairs Lu Zhiyuan said Friday on the sidelines of the ongoing "two sessions."

The ministry will help adapt home environments to make life easier for the elderly, developing home-based smart nursing beds, and offering door-to-door services to help the elderly with meals, cleaning, medicine and bathing, he said.

It is particularly necessary to establish a visiting and caring system for empty-nesters and lonely or solitary elderly people, Lu said, adding that community-embedded elderly care institutions will be also vigorously developed, so that "the elderly can enjoy convenient services at their doorstep."

According to the minister, by the end of 2023, China's population aged 60 and above had reached 297 million, accounting for 21.1 percent of the country's total population.

The "two sessions" refer to the annual meetings of the National People's Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.