Date: May 20, 2020
Source: Guangzhou Daily
Author: Shen Hui

For the eighth time, Lu Xin, a professor in the School of Management's accounting department, has participated in the National People's Congress in Beijing as a deputy. This year she set forth seven proposals, five of them focused on elder care.
 

(Lu Xin)
With her research team, Lu has delved into issues covering community pensions, medical and nursing care, and the pension industry mainly in Shaoguan, Guangdong, and Jinan, Shandong, since last year. In her view, the direction of the country's senior services system was clear, and owing to years of government endeavors and promotions, its framework has been established. However, how to promote quality resources to improve senior care services remains the most daunting national challenge, she said. In this respect, we still have to make solid progress in the layout policy and resources injection.”
 

 (Lu Xin, center)
From nursing to long-term-care insurance, Lu made five suggestions on pension issues from the perspective of the whole chain, centering on the fusion of medical care and pension insurance. Her suggestions included rebuilding China's aptitude testing system for nursing care; popularizing and improving long-term-care insurance; launching a platform of elder-care information; and strengthening efforts to develop the discipline of geriatrics.
 

Lu has paid great attention to the construction of the nursing system for the elderly. Taking Guangzhou as an example, she suggested setting up more designated institutions able to provide elder-care services and learning from German incentive policies in view of the current market situation with insufficient nursing staff. She also called for strengthening nurses’ training and popularizing nursing knowledge, especially among volunteers, relatives and neighbors of elderly people who need nursing services. And she encouraged informal caregivers such as family members, relatives and neighbors to take care of them.

In addition, Lu made several proposals related to elder care from the perspective of promoting top-level design and overall planning. She proposed launching a unified internet platform for elder-care information at provincial and municipal levels as soon as possible. She suggested promoting the development of geriatrics as a discipline and further cultivating professional and technical personnel in elder care with academic qualifications. She also encouraged regional hospitals to transform into rehabilitation hospitals, nursing homes or geriatric hospitals.