Foreign experts said yesterday that to build a comprehensive and quality long-term care (LTC) system, the Taiwanese government and public need to be willing to spend money on the necessary training of domestic caregivers and pay for their services.
The cost of hiring local caregivers could not be too high to be able to compete with the rates of foreign laborers.
"Long-term care will not be free and whether that money comes from taxes or insurance is irrelevant. It is the Taiwanese people's choice whether they want to establish a long-term care system based upon untrained foreign laborers, or employ professionally trained domestic laborers who also speak the language," said Dr. Robert Kane, an American academic specializing in long-term care issues.
Another American academic, Dr Robyn Stone, also said that the cost of not investing in professional training and not keeping a stable labor force in the care industry might turn out to be higher than investing in the industry.
The National Taiwan University Institute of Health Policy and Management, under authorization of the Department of Health (DOH), invited several experts in the long-term care field from the US, Japan, Australia and Israel to discuss Taiwan's LTC system with local academics and government departments. These experts also came up with concrete suggestions at the end of their visit.
These suggestions include:
-- A long-term Care Law should be promulgated to establish general principles for the long-term care program.
-- Long-term care efforts should be directed toward enabling home and community-based care services for older and disabled people.
-- Any non-governmental organization, including non-profit organizations and private firms, would be eligible to participate as providers as long as they can meet the set quality and price standards or perform the care tasks.
-- Initially eligibility for these benefits should be available to all senior citizens and people with disabilities. Long-term care coverage should be universally available to all persons over 20 years of age who have certain disabilities and needs. The program can be expanded to include younger persons as well.
-- Universal entitlement should include some level of user co-payment for services based on income, but the initial levels have to be low to attract users and to compete with the costs of foreign laborers. Any co-payment should be set at a level that would not discourage low-income sufferers from receiving services.
Tan Kai-yuan (
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