“Targeted assistance” facilitates elderly people’s life in Yunnan

Elder ladies living at the Hutian community in Yuxi city, central Yunnan province

In the past 5 years, Yunnan province has been implementing a policy of “targeted assistance” to substantially ameliorate the livelihood of older population, as aging is becoming an increasingly serious issue not only in the province, but all over China.

So far, about 1,200 comprehensive eldercare services institutes and 2,700 community eldercare centers have been built up across the province to meet the needs of elderly people.

Medical services for older population, on the other hand, have also seen a significant improvement. As the number of medical staff and experts grow in both urban and rural areas, people’s accesses to rehabilitation programs, traditional Chinese medicine and psychotherapy have been expanded.

Moreover, all residents over 65 years old are now guaranteed with community-based healthcare and eldercare, which have facilitated their everyday life to a large extent.  

It’s worth mentioning that the monthly average pension of enterprise employees in Yunnan has been raised to 2,972 yuan (around 457 US dollars) per person, which is 36.2% more compared to the end of 2015. 

Reporting by Yang Shuyan (yunnan.cn); trans-editing by Zhang Shuyu; photograph by Li Wenjun