BackA Control Yuan joint committee recently issued a report on its investigation into the government’s long-term care program, identifying a serious shortage of long-term care workers as one of the major problems that needs to be addressed.
According to the report by the joint committee made up of members of the CY’s Committee on Domestic and Minority Affairs, Committee on Financial and Economic Affairs and Committee on Educational and Cultural Affairs, the shortage was one of several difficulties faced during the 10-year Long-term Care (LTC) Program 1.0 (2007-2017) and remained a growing problem in need of resolution when the new 10-year LTC Program 2.0 was launched earlier this year.
The shortage of caregivers in the long-term care sector has been forecast to rise from 5,687 in September last year to more than 8,000 by the year 2020. According to Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics, as of the end of June 2016, a total of 122,180 had completed caregiver training and received certification, but only 24.5 percent of those were actually employed as caregivers. By September 2017, the ratio had further dropped to just 21 percent, clearly illustrating that human resources planning for long-term care was less than satisfactory.
The LTC Program 2.0 was launched with the aim of establishing a universal and diversified long-term care system and remedying the problems faced under the first 10-year program. However, under the new payment scheme of Program 2.0, in which charges are calculated according to services provided rather than by hourly rate, the public has complained about a decrease in number of services and an increase in the amount they must pay. Furthermore, the organizations providing the services might shift the costs onto the public, thereby resulting in a loss of service users and/or an increased reliance on foreign caregivers. Therefore, a review of the program is called for.
Taiwan’s population is rapidly greying, and the long-term care program is well-intentioned. However, the Executive Yuan is duty-bound to ensure that the program is regularly reviewed by the relevant ministries in order to ascertain that it remains financially sound and does not squeeze out funding for other social programs, thereby ensuring the sustainability of the long-term care system.
Source: The Control Yuan, Taiwan
