Concerns Over Nursing Care For Elderly

[george]

GREY GENERATION

Concerns over nursing care for elderly

Aged numbers rising as their care declines

BANGKOK: -- Authorities caring for the aged report growing complaints about paid nursing care given to elderly people - a rapidly growing sector of the community already straining resources. The grievances range from poor services, to abuses, to thefts and more.

"Some attendants give sleeping pills to old people under their charge, and some others have stolen valuables," Social Development and Human Security Ministry deputy permanent secretary Ubon Limsakul said yesterday.

She was speaking at a forum on government policy on how to estabฌlish a nursingcare system for the elderly.

The Health Systems Research Institute and the Foundation of Thai Gerontology Research and Development institute jointly organised the forum.

"We should set a standard for nursing homes or nursing services for the elderly. Such business is set to grow in the future," Ubon said.

She estimated that in the next few years, 15.3 per cent of the country's population-about 10.77 million- will be older than 60 years.

With younger people leaving their home provinces for jobs in Bangkok, more elderly people will need paid service.

"Among elderly people, about 25 per cent are too ill to live independently," Dr Siriphan Sasat of the Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Nursing said yesterday, "They will need someone to help and take care of them".

According to Siriphan, the numฌber of dependent elderly will reach 742,000 by 2020.

Dr Nonglak Pagaiya, an academic at the Human Resource for Health Research and Development Office, said there were now just 97,972 registered nurses in the country. Of them, less than 25 per cent are takฌing care of the elderly.

Other health workers like nursฌing assistants and physical therapists, psychologists and social workers are also few in number.

"Demands are much higher than available human resources," Siriphan said, "This problem must be tackled from the policy level".

She also called for the establishment of a nationallevel committee to tackle problems relating to the care given to the elderly.

-- The Nation 2008-10-31

[Martin]

....Social Development and Human Security Ministry deputy permanent secretary Ubon Limsakul said yesterday. She was speaking at a forum on government policy on how to establish a nursing care system for the elderly. The Health Systems Research Institute and the Foundation of Thai Gerontology Research and Development institute jointly organised the forum. "We should set a standard for nursing homes or nursing services for the elderly. Such business is set to grow in the future," Ubon said. She estimated that in the next few years, 15.3 per cent of the country's population-about 10.77 million- will be older than 60 years. With younger people leaving their home provinces for jobs in Bangkok, more elderly people will need paid service. "Among elderly people, about 25 per cent are too ill to live independently," Dr Siriphan Sasat of the Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Nursing said yesterday, "They will need someone to help and take care of them".

This government official and this Chula academic remind me of the American baseball player who lost his team the World Series because he didn't get his hands in place to catch the ball until it had just passed through his legs.

When another, more senior, official pointed out the other day that Thailand is going to feel (not 'suffer') the effects of WDI (the first, or First, World Depression) next year the organisers of this forum should have cancelled it, as its topic had been overtaken by events.

That 'nursing home industry' was a phenomenon of the past twenty years of spending-beyond-their-means in the 'West'.

And 'younger people leaving their home provinces for jobs in Bangkok' was another one.

There are not going to be 'jobs in Bangkok' for the next lot of youngsters. In fact, the opposite: 'leaving Bangkok to return to their home province' has already started. Just ask how many Isaan taxi drivers went home from Bangkok at Songkran this year and did not return to Bangkok.

One of the good effects of the end of Growth (which had turned malignant, like a cancer) is going to be better care for the elderly, taking place in their extended families, not in crappy 'Care Establishments'.