“Long-Term Care 2.0” Policy In Taiwan

 Written By: ???  Edited By: ???, ???, ???

In view of the increasing elderly population in Taiwan’s aging society, the government is introducing its “Long-Term Care 2.0” policy. This policy improves the services of "Long-term Care 1.0” and increases other services on the basis of "Long-term Care 1.0.” Originally, “Long-term Care 1.0” offers the elderly home care service, daycare service, meal delivery, etc. And in the “Long-Term Care 2.0” policy, it adds the dementia care service, preventive care service, and hospice care service. Although “Long-term care 2.0” is better than “Long-term Care 1.0,” it still needs further improvement.

The goal of the policy is to establish a sound long-term care system to cope with problems of our aging society, and to ease the financial burden of families in demand of such care. Compared to the “Long-Term Care 1.0,” the “Long-Term Care 2.0” integrates each independent care service together, and establishes a system to organize these services to a set. For families with long-term care needs, the government provides them with subsidies. In this way, people not only get the whole service easily but also buy it cheaply.  

However, the “Long-Term Care 2.0” policy still faces problems in terms of manpower, budget, and so on. These problems are considerable challenges for “Long-term care 2.0.” With the growing numbers of the elderly, the manpower of the care services cannot cater to their needs anymore. In addition, all nursing homes are not included in the “Long-term care 2.0” budget arrangement, so the situation may cause some safety problems, such as the fire accident in the Neihu nursing home on September 22. 

Therefore, to really make things easier for family members and caregivers, the government should improve the policy immediately. The “Long-term care 2.0” policy should be improved in all aspects so that the government can handle the increasing elderly population. In this manner, the policy can improve the quality of life for the elders and caregivers.

A組：陳勇翰 葉明翰 陳任中 第一篇