The Elderly's Well-being Deserves More Attention

China Post

March 14, 2008

Taiwan

About a year ago, the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) and the Department of Health(DOH) adopted the policy under which families that hire trained local caretakers on an around-the clock basis would be given a monthly subsidy of NT$10,000. The payment is also available to families that employ local trained caregivers for only eight or 12 hours per day.

This measure seemed to be a godsend to those with a senior or incapacitated family member. It was also designed to encourage the employment of local labor and reduce unemployment.

The fact is, the policy has neither benefited families with a senior member who need the services of a caregiver, nor has it significantly helped lower the unemployment rate.

The reason for this is very simple. Nowadays, fees for caring for an elderly or physically challenged person are so high that only the very rich can afford them. Most people can take advantage of such help only for a brief time. They simply lack the financial means to hire a Taiwan-born, trained caregiver, with or without the NT$10,000 subsidy, on a long-term basis.

Officials explained that there are about 15,000 qualified local caregivers for hire around the island. The costs for employing the native caregivers are between NT$30,000 and NT$35,000 per month, if the families can share the burden by taking care of the elderly and other physically challenged people who need long-term care.

In fact, the cost of hiring a local caregiver on a round-the-clock basis is NT$2,000 each day. That comes to NT$60,000 per month, which is the salary of those in the middle-income bracket. These people would have to live in the poorhouse if they employed a local to take care of an elderly or sick family member.

Local caregivers can be hired on a half-day basis for NT$1,200 per day, but that would still be a heavy financial burden for the majority of Taiwan residents who need such help on a long-term basis. Besides, those who have to work in the daytime hardly have the energy to take care of the sick or handicapped who need 24-hour care.

What these families really need is live-in caregivers, and the cost of hiring a Vietnamese, Indonesian or Filipino to this end is only about a third of the expense normally paid to hire a local.

A conservative estimate puts at 130,000 the number of families in Taiwan that have a senior who needs long-term, round-the-clock attention. The actual number of families that need such care is far larger. The much reviled current government policy regarding the hiring of foreign caregivers prevents numerous citizens who lack much-needed care from getting it.

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