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Written by: Commentary Editing Room
2020-10-06 07:00
Last update date: 2020-10-06 07:00
The Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Law Chi-kwong, discussed the danger of Hong Kong’s aging population in his blog on Sunday (4th). He stated that in order to avoid what might be considered a "vent," he only conducted a simple analysis of population forecast data.
Among them, Luo Zhiguang mentioned many times that the aging population will "appear in a wave shape, first rise and then fall". I wonder if it is to relieve social anxiety and soothe people's hearts.
However, even if the elderly population will eventually fall, the real focus should be on "the demand for (elderly) services in 30 years will be approximately four times what it is today."
According to the data provided by Luo Zhiguang, the peak period of population aging will continue for about two to thirty years, and even after a decline, the proportion of the population aged 65 and over will remain at a high level of 35.1% to 35.8%. position.
This is a challenge that cannot be underestimated for Hong Kong, where the lack of elderly services is becoming more and more serious.
Not enough homes to wait until death
The waiting list for subsidized community care services for the elderly increased from 5,724 in 2016 to more than 11,000 at the end of last year. The average waiting time has increased from half a year to more than one year.
Insufficient care in the community has increased and earlier the opportunity for the elderly to move into institutions.
The inadequacy of care in residential homes is equally serious.
As of the latest data as of August 31, 2020, the waiting list has risen to 39,000, and more than 7,000 elderly people have died during the waiting period.
Therefore, society must not hold on to the idea of waiting for the peak of population aging to pass naturally, but should actively respond to it, lest it becomes the last straw that crushes the camel.
The reason for the steadily deteriorating services for the elderly lies in the incorrect allocation of government resources.
Luo Zhiguang once said in his blog that "The government has been increasing the resources devoted to elderly services, and the recurrent expenditure on subsidizing elderly services has increased from about 5 billion in 2012-13 to about 7.8 billion in 2017-18. More than 50%."
It's just that Luo Chi-kwong only emphasizes the government's investment in elderly services, but ignores the issue of the efficiency of resource allocation, so that elderly services do not advance and regress.
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Luo Zhiguang has been talking about it for a long time
The government did not directly increase the supply of public elderly services. It only set aside 800 million "residential home vouchers" in 2015 and gradually increased the number of "residential home vouchers" thereafter.
However, in the name of sharing the pressure of public services, the "institution vouchers" actually push the elderly into the private market that lacks supervision and is of varying quality.
The service is not trusted, so that the elderly would rather wait for the service quota provided by the government than greet to go to the private market quickly.
In fact, as early as 2017, not long after Luo Zhiguang took office, he already mentioned that the ageing population is severe and the first thing to do is to reduce the tsunami challenge of the elderly.
However, the article mentioned "strengthening manpower planning" and "discussing how to increase the use of technology and electronic machinery to improve service efficiency" and other issues have not been resolved so far.
This time, Luo Zhiguang once again sounded the alarm of the ageing population in the director’s blog. The content was more concise than the last time. He only emphasized the severity of the data and did not put forward any substantive opinions or opinions. According to his own statement, it is for Avoiding "extension", but based on the fact that the elderly services and welfare for the elderly have not advanced or regressed during his tenure, it is unavoidable to doubt his sincerity and determination to deal with the ageing population.
Since 2017, Hong Kong has missed the precious three years of preparing for the aging population. Luo Zhiguang can no longer linger on analyzing data this time. He should come up with specific reform plans as soon as possible to deal with the "cold winter" of decades of population aging.
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