Taiwan needs to make an immediate effort to tackle the problem posed by its aging population by establishing a comprehensive elderly-care system with significant government commitment, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said in Miaoli City yesterday.
Tsai, the DPP presidential candidate, reiterated her platform on care for the elderly, saying that there needs to be three levels of care to form a sound system — home care, community-based care and institutional care — so that “no one would be left behind.”
There was no better place to elaborate the policy than Miaoli County, which has among the most rapidly aging populations in the nation, Tsai said on the second day of her four-day visit through high-concentration Hakka constituencies.
Photo: Ho Tsung-han, Taipei Times
Overall, she said, senior citizens account for 10.7 percent of Taiwan’s population of 23 million and the percentage is expected to increase to 16 percent by 2020.
If preschool children are taken into account, one in three Taiwanese would need social care services in the near future, Tsai said at a retirement home in a Miaoli City suburb.
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration has not been doing enough, nor has it been tackling the issue quickly enough, Tsai said, adding that Ma had dumped the “social safety net” program planned by the previous DPP administration.
If she were elected in January, Tsai said, her first priority would be improving medical care resources and the nation’s infrastructure, particularly in Miaoli County, before the eventual establishment of a comprehensive long-term social care system in 10 years.
Since “speed” would be crucial, she said, massive government resources would be deployed in the program in the first three years of her administration.
There should be as many publicly funded and publicly operated institutions as possible, while some of them could be publicly funded private institutions, she said.
Speaking earlier in the Lioudong (流東) community, located in Toufen Township (頭份), Miaoli County, Tsai said the community served as a model for community-based elderly care.
Dedicated volunteers in the close-knit community have helped retired and semi-retired senior citizens, most of which had worked as farmers, to work and pass down their expertise and cultural heritage to the younger generations, she said.
Liudong symbolized her vision for Taiwan’s rural communities in the future, which combine modern and advanced agricultural development, community-based elderly care and development of the local economy — three crucial elements in her domestic policy.
Tsai will be traveling through high-concentration Hakka areas in Taoyuan and Hsinchu counties today and tomorrow to drum up support for her presidential campaign after recent visits through the east and west coasts boosted her support, some sources said.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS