Elderly American resident found at Beitou bus stop with badly swollen feet unable to walk. It was then discovered that he had not eaten for a week. After taking him home, Peitou residents discovered that he was living alone and has a hoarding disorder. He has since been diagnosed with psychosis and dementia.
I would guess that he has lived in Taiwan for quite a while.
Since he is not a citizen and does not have household registration, he was never put on the local list of elderly people living alone and thus never received any social services visits. This could have been even worse had a good samaritan not seen that something was wrong, helped him home, and then informed the authorities.
There will be more cases like this as Taiwan’s permanent resident population continues to increase and more foreign residents choose to retire here.
Seems he has resident permit (but not household reg. for where he lived, thus no social visits) from the news story, and they will send him to a nursing home. Yes , a sad story that no friends that check up on him or care.
In a place with more elder singles and less family connections, it is important to have some friends help in Taiwan as the system is designed for family help. But a lot more loners these days.
More details and photos. He is a permanent resident who has lived in Taiwan for a long time. It was a real team effort to get him help.
The story mentions that Taipei City already has more than 570,000 residents over 65 but only 9,821 senior citizens registered as living alone. The local ward chief ( 里長) says that she thinks there are many unregistered/unknown cases.
Wonder if he is a Forumosan. Would have only been 53 or 54 in the early days of the Forum.
I remember drinking with a well-known Forumosan back in the early 2000s at a pub for long term expats and observing (not me or him but the strangers) that I didn’t want to grow old and single in Taiwan being an expat.
My good friend died of brain cancer here and he went a couple of years slowly declining. I hate to think what his last days would have been like without his very caring girlfriend and to a lesser extent, me. Otherwise he’d have been alone.
Truly sad. Loads of foreigners are in the same boat, but many have some form of family taking care if them. Frankly, it’s the same for taiwanese.
Its sad tonrealize that even citizens here dont get decent nursing. Needing family. Food and etc provided by fmaily. Its not so inlike prison, literally. Health care here is proper dog shit in terms of elder care. Like, abysmal
Or, as the go ernment likes to say, make more money. The private sector is better…
Yep. Just happened today to this movie star fallen on hard times. He was so famous in the 80s that I immediately recognized him although I didn’t know his name. Sad. His case is a bit different but he was living alone too. There’s going to be a lot of this.
The current administration does seem to recognize that elderly care in Taiwan needs to be improved. Vice Premier Cheng Li-chun ( 鄭麗君)—someone I admire from her previous work in the Ministry of Culture, and clearly no dummy—has spoken about some of the plans here.
Of course with the KMT led LY in torch everything mode, who knows how this will play out. And the case of the American with an APRC shows how the ridiculous household registration system—which we cannot join—is unfit for the contemporary world!
There will be more horror stories like in Japan. Where many older people are lonely and have no social contacts or family. Their bodies are found many days after they passed away by decomposition smell.
People have fewer kids, fewer are married. More cases like this.
Government should increase social workers checking on elderly if they live alone. NIA has all the data on elder foreigners who are not married/divorced.
Sure. That’s nice. Talk is always nice. Certainly sounds nice. But pardon me if this hasn’t been a topic of decades and still basically fuck all done despite early enough funds to do so.
It’s an embarrassment, fully and truly. This isn’t a Chinese KMT or DPP stance issue, nor is it an issue of not understanding what needs doing. Nor is it a lack of funding. Nor is it…fuck it. It’s a massive failure, on both sides of the political aisle. For any of us that have taken care of people in the hospitals, old folks homes or being forced to take care of near dead relatives at home…everyone is well aware of the issue. The foreign care giver scheme if compared to taiwanese counterparts, based on wage alone, would be enough to put into a proper care structure. It isn’t and it’s beyond fucking embarrassing. Infuriating actually, if I’m being honest. It’s disgraceful a foreign caregiver gets roughly half to a third of a taiwanese one and that difference in price isn’t put into any kind of system, it’s literally just either abusing a group or creating an entitlement on another group.
I get the Taiwan NHI system is certainly far superior to say the USA or Canadian systems and infrastructure, but it’s still a fail. Like a hard fail, especially for certain sects of society: ie. Elderly and cancer patients. And it’s getting ever more bankrupt by the day. Somehow (not corruption nor enforcement issues, obviously )
It’s abysmal. It’s the harshest word I can think of, but still doesn’t do the system justice considering the country we live on. We need better. Sorry, they need better, I’m still young and not yet fully near death. Also a foreigner and wknt really be welcome come the end…Okey dokey, “they”.
Gotta push more now, before it’s too late. The road repaving stupidity alone could probably cover large amounts of elderly care. Imagine if we did 1 more thing properly on top of resurfacing corruption, health care could be amazing.
Traditionally the family would care for the elderly and in many ways it’s a cultural thing that I would say largely benefited elderly more compared to other countries that hand off the elderly to facilities in most cases.
But with an aging population and declining birth rate, Taiwan should rethink how the state can help with elderly care.
When my grandfather was sick and we set up room for him for end of life cancer care. He had 3 children and their partners to switch between caring along with nurses. It’s possible with multiple kids.
But now with 1-2 kids if that, the burden becomes much harder even with family care.
)