February 24, 2011
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2011 February 23 - March 1 [TOKYO]
Tokyo’s availability of nursing care ranked at bottom nationwide |
This was revealed by Japanese Communist Party representative Yoshida Nobuo on February 23 at a Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Special Budget Committee meeting.
In Tokyo, with its high proportion of elderly households, the number of elderly people waiting to enter special nursing-care facilities exceeded 41,000 in 2004. Special nursing homes are designed to offer 24-hour service to people who are certified to be too difficult for home nursing care. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government plans to build special facilities for 5,150 elderly people in five years. Yoshida criticized the Tokyo government for setting such a meager goal in the first place and for even failing to achieve that goal.
In 2000, 1.42% of the elderly population in Tokyo lived in special nursing homes. This figure fell to 1.29% in 2008, ranking 43rd among 47 prefectures. Yoshida pointed out that the Tokyo government under Governor Ishihara abolished its subsidy to defray the land cost of nursing care facilities and halved the budget to financially help in their maintenance and improvement. He urged Governor Ishihara to restore the subsidy and drastically increase the budget.
Yoshida said, “Many aged people have to stay in unlicensed nursing care facilities that are not covered by the nursing-care insurance or in centers which do not provide sleeping accommodations,” because the Tokyo government has neglected to construct a sufficient number of nursing care facilities, including special nursing homes and regular health service facilities for the aged.
Ishihara refused to respond to Yoshida, but a Tokyo government official admitted that Tokyo is ranked 43rd in the ratio of special nursing homes to the aged and 47th in group homes designed to provide 24-hour services to the elderly with dementia.
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