A crisis in care for the elderly

The recent death of a resident of a Taipei municipal senior citizen's home whose body was found in his bathroom three days after he had died not only made newspaper headlines but also rekindled interest in the issue of care for seniors, especially at public facilities.

The Taipei Municipal Hau Jan Senior Citizens' Home (台北市立浩然敬老院) blamed the tragedy on a shortage of staff -- there is only one counselor for every 120 residents and 15 nurses for every 100 patients.

City councilors demanded the city take disciplinary action against those responsible and devote more people and resources to the home for the elderly.

The Bureau of Social Affairs (BSA, 社會局) -- Hau Jan's supervising authority -- has complied by delivering reprimands to those held accountable. It has also requested three city agencies -- the Department of Personnel (人事處), Commission of Research, Development and Evaluation (研考會) and Department of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (主計處) -- to grant its proposal to recruit 26 more staff, including six temporary and 20 permanent workers whose salaries alone may cost the city over NT$13 million.

Since in the past the city government, claiming a lack of funds, has rejected similar requests by the bureau, it is conceivable that it may either do so again or supply funding for a scaled-back proposal.

Because the city is still mulling over the proposal and Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is currently away on a trip to the US, and any decision on the matter will almost certainly have to wait until his return.

When the news broke of the most recent death at Hau Jan on Aug. 3, it not only stunned city officials but also the general public. Most people were extremely curious to know how such a thing could have happened.

A preliminary investigation showed that the deceased, an 85-year-old diabetic named Lee, lapsed into a coma and collapsed in his own bathroom on the night of July 29.

His body was not discovered until three days later on Aug. 1 because, according to Hau Jan, there was insufficient staff on duty over that weekend.

Lee's death is not an isolated case. It is the third in less than a month. In the early morning of July 15, a 78-year-old male resident named Yao hanged himself, reportedly over an affair he was having with a woman outside of the nursing home. One week earlier on July 8, a 79-year-old male resident named Chang also hanged himself following several earlier attempts to commit suicide. He had a long history of chronic illness including heart disease and suffered from hallucinations.

Last year's record was even more dire. There were five deaths at the home -- three homicides and two suicides. On June 2, Chou Hsun-shui (周煦水) committed suicide after stabbing to death Chan A-po (詹阿波), one of the residents, and wounding a security guard and another resident. On April 20, Shih Yu-ping (史玉萍 ) committed suicide after killing his wife. On March 18, Wang Fu-tien (王福田) killed his roommate, Cheng Yuan-cheng (鄭元澄), after drinking heavily.

Tsai Chiu-min (蔡秋敏), chief of Hau Jan's social work section, said in addition to the shortage of people, the uniqueness of the residents' backgrounds has a lot to do with the tragedies.

"All of them are from low-income families. Some of them were abandoned by their families, some have even served jail terms. Some are old soldiers who came to Taiwan alone or left their families behind in China," she said, adding that half of the current 700 residents are men originally from the mainland.