Civic groups yesterday attacked Ministry of Labor plans to ease the requirements for hiring foreign caregivers, with the groups saying that the plans would undercut efforts to swell the ranks of domestic caregivers.
Representatives from the Taiwan Social Welfare League, Taiwan Home Service Strategic Alliance, Taiwan Association of Family Caregivers and other groups at a Legislative Yuan news conference shouted their opposition to ministry plans to allow families of elderly people with light or moderate disabilities to receive “outreach” hourly services from foreign caregivers.
While there are various requirements for different age brackets, current regulations mostly stipulate that elderly people must be severely disabled to be eligible to hire foreign caregivers, who typically lives with the families they work for, with the exception of a trial hourly service program.
While the ministry’s outreach program only employs 40 foreign caregivers, advocates said expanding eligibility would set a poor precedent and had created confusion because it was at odds with the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s stated aim of swelling the ranks of domestic caregivers.
“Foreign caregivers are like a back door that is always open as we work hard to develop a system for government-sponsored home care — as long as that door is open, there is a risk that all of the money and time invested in developing home care would be wasted,” Taiwan Association of Family Caregivers secretary-general Chen Ching-ning (陳景寧) said.
Taiwan Home Service Strategic Alliance president Tu Hsin-ning (涂心寧) said the policy had sent conflicting signals to the domestic caregivers her organization represents.
“While the Ministry of Labor has been increasing the number of training requirements [for domestic caregivers] and considering whether to include domestic caregivers in employment incentives, it has also been dropping restrictions on hiring foreign caregivers — so it needs to clarify the direction its headed in,” she said.
Advocates said that demand for domestic caregivers has fallen by more than 10 percent since last year, when the ministry relaxed regulations to allow foreign caregivers to be hired for people who are at least 85 years old and only rely on their caregivers to a minor degree.
“The core issue is the potential shock effect on domestic caregivers,” said Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴), who formerly served as secretary-general for the Federation for the Welfare of the Elderly.
Even if the nature of the outreach program would ensure that foreign caregivers would not be less expensive to hire than domestic caregivers, the ministry’s policy is worrisome because any increase in the availability of foreign caregivers would undercut efforts to establish a domestic caregiver system, she said, adding that domestic caregivers can better guarantee the dignity of the elderly because of their language skills and cultural understanding.
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