With regards to the livelihood of the elderly, Mayor Lin Chia-lung visited Private Tian Yuan Nursing Home for the Elderly yesterday (14) to express care to seniors, and presented a NT20,000 gift for meals. The seniors of the nursing home also prepared a wonderful Taiko drum performance in return. Seeing the joyful laughter on everyone’s face, Mayor Lin stated that the integration of preventive care, medics, long-term care and community resources by the government, with promotion of “721 project” is with the hope that senior citizens can be healthy, well and continue life-long education in the Evergreen school of happiness and social care locations .

Tian Yuan Nursing Home for the Elderly received an excellent evaluation from both the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Institutions of Elderly Welfare annually. Last year, Tian Yuan was among the only two institutions in Taichung City to receive subsidies from the Ministry of Health and Welfare on being locations for oral health checks, not only strengthening oral care resources and energy for seniors between institutions, but also becoming the first nursing home in Asia to receive verification from the ISQM international service quality management for its top grade environment. Mayor Lin proceeded in attending to the conditions of elders in the center today.

Mayor Lin stated that the city government is building upon a central ten year long-term care 2.0 to expand service target groups, increase service items, raise service hours and develop innovative services in response to public needs. The quality of life for elders is dependent upon care services, and only with the integration of medical care, long-term care, preventive health care resources and construction of health care group systems based on community can the administrative vision of “Capital of livelihood, City of Inhabitance” be implemented.

According to the Social Affairs Bureau, streamlined elderly care offers continuous care services. 257 locations of all service types is expected to expand to 280 locations, Evergreen education will increase from 440 classes to 500, school of happiness will increase from 16 to 22 areas. Dajia piloted the overall community care project, Waipu started the dementia day care center, and Longjing, Cingshuei began small scale multi-functional home services, offering meal preparation and bathing, etc., for elders with dementia. The most important basic government principle revolves around the “preventive” measures, in hopes that senior citizens can learn and live to a ripe old age.