To meet the needs of an aging population, the Executive Yuan has approved the construction of the nation’s first hospital dedicated to the elderly, a source said.
The National Cheng Kung University Hospital is to build a senior care hospital and establish a research and education center for senior care, as part of the government’s efforts to boost the nation’s biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors, the source said.
The project, expected to be completed by 2022 at the earliest, is expected to cost NT$2.9 billion (US$95.69 million), with the research and education center costing NT$1.5 billion, the source said, adding that the university would contribute NT$1.4 billion.
Biotechnology is one of the key industries that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has targeted to help boost the nation’s global competitiveness.
The senior care hospital is to become a center to train personnel specializing in pharmaceutics for older patients and play an essential role in the government’s plan to develop smart hospitals, telemedicine and the planning of policy related to the elderly population, the Ministry of Education said.
The ministry would invest NT$1.5 billion in the project, it added.
Floor one to nine of the 16-floor hospital, which would also have four basement floors, would be used to provide treatment and care, with a total of 445 beds.
Floors 10 to 12 would house the research and education center.
The majority of the center’s faculty would be teachers and researchers from university’s School of Pharmacy and Institute of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, but National Cheng Kung University Hospital would hire 75 more doctors, if the Executive Yuan approves its personnel plan.
Patients for the new hospital would have to be at least 65, with the exceptions of dementia or Aboriginal patients, who would have to be at least 55, and disabled patients, who would have to be at least 49.
National Cheng Kung University Hospital, which opened in June 1988, has 20 doctors specializing in gerontology and geriatrics.
Its Institute of Gerontology has wards especially designed to meet the needs of older patients, the ministry said.
The senior care hospital would become its newest branch.
The nation has been an “aged society” since 1993 and would become a so-called “hyper-aged society” by 2025, with more than 20 percent of the population being elderly, the National Development Council has said.
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