People aged 80 or older would be allowed to hire foreign caregivers without undergoing a health evaluation, according to amendments to the Employment Service Act (就業服務法) to take effect on Friday.
The amendment to Article 46 of the act allows employers to hire live-in foreign caregivers for people aged 80 or older, or those aged 70 to 79 diagnosed with cancer at stage 2 or above, without requiring a health evaluation by a medical institution.
Some civic groups have expressed concern that the new policy might have a negative effect on the families of critically ill people or those with disabilities hiring foreign caregivers, as workers might prefer caring for elderly people.
Photo: CNA
People with disabilities, rare diseases or dementia, as well as elderly people with severe impairments, might have to compete with more healthy or slightly frail elderly people to hire caregivers and be forced to pay higher wages, civil organizations and a lawmaker said on Monday.
The Ministry of Labor yesterday unveiled measures that officials said would help protect the welfare of 197,000 families that hire foreign workers to take care of critically ill family members.
There are 580,000 healthy or partly healthy elderly people in Taiwan, and 120,000 people aged 70 to 79 with stage 2 cancer, the ministry said, citing government data, adding that the law is expected to result in 100,000 new applicants for foreign caregivers.
It is heading a multi-ministerial workforce to establish a mechanism to separate applicants who are severely ill from those who are moderately sick to prioritize the former in authorizing foreign care workers to enter Taiwan, the ministry said.
Fewer people who are critically ill would have to undergo a Barthel index evaluation to hire a live-in foreign care worker, it said.
People with stage 4 cancer of any type, paralysis that prevents them from getting up without assistance and those who have been authorized to hire foreign carers may use a medical certificate issued the same year to renew their permit without an evaluation, it said.
The amendments would prioritize families with critically ill members to obtain permission to hire caregivers from abroad and allow them to employ foreigners who originally entered Taiwan for other types of work, it said.
A foreign worker can become a caregiver by completing 20 hours of mandatory training, it said.
The ministry would establish a service center to match families to available migrant workers, it said.
It would work with Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines to increase the number of inbound migrant workers and the vocational training they received, the ministry said.
The labor ministry and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are to prioritize the paperwork to certify foreign workers designated for families with critically ill members over other cases, it said.
The government would assign 188 additional civil servants to process foreign caregiver applications from such families, it said.
The ministry is to add NT$1.18 billion (US$39.72 million) to a fund to provide short-term care to alleviate the burden on the families of people who are critically ill until a permanent worker can be employed, it said.
It would publish a handbook of essential knowledge for employers of foreign carers and expand the information on its public Line account, it said.
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