Research On The Supply Of Home-and-Community-Based Services For The Elderly In Wuhou District Of Chengdu And The Possible Solutions

Exacerbated by the aging of population, supporting the elderly has become a highlighted issue in recent years. On the one hand, the traditional mode of supporting the old by households can not work any more; on the other hand, supporting the aged by institutions is still unpopular in China. Therefore, the home-and-community-based service for the elderly is finally set up as an effective mode and being made a pilot over the whole country. Chengdu, as one of the pilot city, has started the practice. Nevertheless, there are documents showing that this project does not work very well. The elderly do not satisfy with the service because it hardly meets their needs.To find out the reason, the author conducts a research about the supply and demands of the home-and-community-based service for the elderly by visiting some related departments in Wuhou district of Chengdu. The results show that there are main three kinds of home-and-community-based service for the elderly. The first is free community help offered by the government for those have trouble in finance, the second is welfare service supported by the government from the community care system, and the third is self-paying service under the guide of government. Differences among the three kinds of service exist in the service objects, the contents and the prices.To probe whether this mode meet the demands of elders or not and what is the main problem of this project, the author again conducts some interviews. The result shows that the aged have various demands for the home-and-community-based service. The types and the contents of service depend on their self-supporting capability, the households’financial capability, and the real needs of the elderly in daily lives. Up to now, disagreements still exist between the real demands of the elderly and the service offered by the project in Wuhou district, which fails to meet the elder’s demands. Besides, some unreasonable operations in supply also fail to meet the elder’s demands. From all the researches conducted and analysis, the author safely reaches to a conclusion that the main elements that make the project a failure are those:1.The policy of home-and-community-based service for the elderly is not widely advertised;2. the welfare supported is not widely covered;3. insufficient public facilities are offered to the elderly;4. areas supplied with home-and-community-based service is limited. All these problems call for improvement, and measures, such as intensifying the advertisement, updating the system design and so on, should be taken into consideration.