A project for institutions to help elderly people with special needs was launched in Beijing on the 17th of January. Li Hongbing, the deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau attended the opening ceremony and gave an address, in which he said that “given the current aging of the population, it is of vital importance for the whole of society to guarantee that the elderly are well supported and protected. As a result, the institutions of care for the elderly are playing a larger role in achieving that goal”.
When emergencies (like over-spending medical costs or sudden severe diseases) occur during an old person’s stay in an institution of care, it is necessary to have a guarantor sign a letter of approval for further treatment. It is thus hard for elderly people to live in such institutions if they have no children or spouses to take care of them, because they have no such guarantor. To solve this problem, the Beijing Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau initially launched a project to encourage Chinese care institutions to provide such old people with special services. The Beijing Yingshuo Fulao Public-Benefit Foundation is one of the institutions that undertook the project. It plays the role of guarantor for the elderly, in charge of handling all matters concerning hospital procedures, treatment and even property managements for them after getting their approval.
