The National Policy Foundation, a think tank affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), on Thursday called on President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration to pay more attention to the psychological and financial strain family caregivers face.
The central government’s Long-term Care Plan 2.0 does not give family caregivers the help they need, said Kao Yuang-kuang (高永光), organizer of the foundation’s sustainable development division.
KMT Legislator Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said that long-term care is an issue for everyone, not just elderly people.
His generation and the next must address the possibility that they would be responsible for caring for aging relatives, he said.
From January to last month, the number of births in Taiwan was lower than the number of deaths by 8,795, Chiang said, citing Ministry of the Interior statistics.
Meanwhile, the nation has more than 3.52 million people aged 65 or older, he said.
While the Act of Gender Equality in Employment (性別工作平等法) gives employees up to seven days of family care leave per year to take care of family members who need vaccinations, have a serious illness or have experienced some other major event, Chiang said that seven days is not enough.
The Long-term Care Plan 2.0, proposed by the Tsai administration in 2016, is in its fourth year, but the public does not know enough about the plan and the government has not done an adequate job of publicizing it, he said.
Chiang said that based on his visits to daycare centers for elderly people and the feedback that he has received from family caregivers, respite care is what is “most urgently needed.”
He said that he would push for legislation to allow workers to take time off to arrange for the long-term care of relatives.
To prevent workers from being forced to leave their jobs to take care of elderly relatives, Chiang urged the central government to conduct a comprehensive review of its Long-term Care Plan 2.0 and to consider other countries’ approaches to the issue.
Caregiving responsibilities affect the work performance of 84 percent of people who balance work and caregiving duties, KMT Legislator Hsieh Yi-fong (謝衣鳳) said, citing a 2016 survey by the Taiwan Association of Family Caregivers.
A 2017 survey by the association showed that more than half of the people who balance work and caregiving duties believed that the first six months after their family member developed a disability were the busiest, she said.
Hsieh said that she would propose using the Ministry of Labor’s Employment Security Fund to provide workers paid family care leave where they would be paid 60 percent of their usual salary.
Taipei does not have enough long-term residential care facilities or daycare centers to meet demand, KMT Taipei City Councilor Chang Szu-kang (張斯綱) said, urging the Taipei City Government to take more responsibility by helping interested businesses to secure land.
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