Give family carers better support to allow elderly to age at home, Hong Kong think tank says
Hong Kong Vision wants government to allocate more money to community care rather than institutions where old people live apart from their families
A think tank led by former Legislative Council president Jasper Tsang Yok-sing has called on the government to give family carers better support to achieve its goal of allowing old people to age at home rather than in institutions.
“The government has been reiterating ‘ageing in place’ as its core policy, but we cannot see signs of the government caring about it in terms of resource allocation,” Ng Kai-hon, a senior researcher for Hong Kong Vision, said.
Ng was referring to the government’s HK$3.9 billion investment in residential care in 2014-15, which was 3.5 times what it spent on community care.
Citing the relatively high institutionalisation rate of elderly people in Hong Kong – 6.8 per cent – which is double the level of Japan and Singapore, the think tank highlighted deficiencies in the current system to implement “ageing in place”.
While almost 40 per cent of family carers for elderly people were their children, Ng argued the government had not done enough in helping them overcome structural constraints.