With the population aging, there are, a LOT of the never-foreseen-before problems, just surfacing now, from the Front Page Sections, translated…
The government finally agreed to raise the wages of the social welfare type of foreign helpers, and this had sparked discussions from the various angles. The families who needed the helpers, the organizations that offered long-term care, those who cared about the rights of the migrated workers, all voiced their different opinions on the matter, in the past, the manpower issue on long-term care continued to sway, when, do we get to see the long-term, long-term care policies working, should be the most important focus for now, because the population of Taiwan will age, even faster than the Japanese, becoming the world’s number one.
Based off of the close calculations of the Social Welfare Department, there are currently, 780,000 elderly who needed help looking after, and, on top of that, there are those who required long-term care, those who are not yet disabled, but needed the caretaking 24/7, and, with what’s provided by the government on this front, the demand greatly exceeded the supplies, the laws for long-term care just passed this May, but, the implementations won’t come for another two more years, and, the related matters have yet to be discussed too, and, on the certifications of caretakers, the qualifications, they’re still up in the air.
The long-term care manpower in Taiwan currently is on half a million citizens, 220,000 foreign caretakers, a little over twenty thousand caretakers who are Taiwanese, and, a little over two thousand facilities, toward the increase of the elderly population, and the needs for long-term care, the government should set up a long-term plan.
And, this article goes in detail about how the work environment for some of the long-term caretakers needed improvements, and that we shouldn’t give into the demands of how the foreign hired person’s call for raises, that we should also look after the care providers’, as well as the families’ needs. So, there’s still NO answers yet…