China needs more nurses to care for senior citizens

Beijing. May 14. Silkroadnews - More seniors will be able to receive nursing care - not only at elderly care facilities but also within communities and even at home in the future, China Daily reports.
“Based on our national conditions, nursing care provided by organizations should not be our main future direction. The main bodies offering care for the elderly should mostly be communities and home-care options,” the agency quoted Jiao Yahui, deputy head of the medical administration and supervision of the National Health Commission, saying.
Currently, it is mainly the hospitals that provide nursing services for the elderly people in China. According to the National Committee on Aging, at the end of 2017, China had 241 million people over 60, accounting for 17.3% of the total population. Of these, 56.1% or 135 million people were people aged from 60 to 69.
With this, in 2017 there were only 3.8 million nurses in the country, meaning a lack of specialists to care for the country’s seniors, Jiao said, noting that among the elderly there are healthy people, people with chronic diseases and those able to look after themselves to some degree.
The National Health Commission pays more attention to long-term care insurance. Insurance is intended to provide economic assistance to those who lose the ability to meet their daily needs as they age.
“This can help with seniors’ long-term nursing expenses to a certain extent,” Jiao said.
In 2016, in 15 cities in China including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Guangdong and Chengdu and Sichuan Province, pilot projects for long-term insurance care was launched.
The profession of nurses in China is becoming much more popular in terms of the number of professionals and the quality of their training. “The number of registered nurses in 2017 rose by 126.5 percent over the 1.68 million in 2008. And 67 percent of them have college or higher degrees. However, there is still a huge gap between supply and demand. Our society should pay more attention to promoting the profession so more people will decide join their ranks,” the agency cited Jiao saying.