Caregiver policy not complete yet

The foreign caregiver policy of the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) was questioned by legislators yesterday during an interrogation session at the Legislative Yuan, who said the policy still had too many problems to be carried out by Jan. 1 of next year as planned.

CLA Chairman Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) said the foreign caregiver policy is designed to aid in the development of the long-term care-giving industry, as well as resolving the caregiver shortage problem that has appeared due the rise in the number of people aged over 65.

The number of those over 65 in the country has reached 330,000, and as of August this year, the number of foreign caregivers amounted to 130,777 people, according to CLA figures.

Many legislators touched upon the problem of the Barthel Index during the interrogation, questioning whether eliminating the use of the index would cause an influx of foreign caregivers into Taiwan.

Lee announced a new application process for hiring foreign caregivers last week, forgoing the conventional Barthel Index, which assigns a score ranging from zero to 100 when assessing a disabled applicant's need for care.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ho Tsai-feng (侯彩鳳) said that the lifting of the index and the rise in the number of foreign caregivers would pose a threat to Taiwanese national health care laborers, who are mostly middle-aged, previously unemployed women.

In response, Lee said even though the application process has changed, the overall number of foreign caregivers coming to Taiwan will not be much higher, adding that the Barthel Index would still be used as a "reference."

Lee also said that Taiwanese caregivers will receive first priority, due to their better training and language ability, and that foreign ones will be used only if domestic services are unavailable.

The CLA, together with the Department of Health (DOH) and Ministry of the Interior (MOI), will offer subsidies of NT$5000 (US$150) for families to give to foreign careworkers for a full work day of eight hours.

Lee said that the CLA was considering extending the eight-hour workday to a twenty-four hour service, since many patients need full-time care. There are also plans to offer NT$10,000 subsidies for twenty-four hours if possible.