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The Care for the Elderly in Sweden and in Japan |
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4. Home Care for the Elderly |
The meaning o f t he word " Home Ca re " in both countries is different. In Japan, "Home Care" usually means "Home Care by the Family" , but in Sweden 'Home Care" does not always means the 'Home Care by the Family' . In this chapter, I write about the difference of the "Home Care' in both countries.
In chapter 3. I wrote the situation of the 700.000 bedridden (bed-bound) elderly and the one million senile dementia elderly in Japan. And 37% the bedridden elderly and 74% of the senile dementia elderly are cared at home by the families in Japan. Table . 9 and Table . 10 shows the real i ty of the fami ly caregivers .
The reasons why families do not or can not get the help by home helpers are as follows;
PERSON
The number of home helpers per elderly in Japan is about 1120 compared to that in Sweden. The biggest reason is that most of the cases elderly are cared by their own families. There are so many housewives and about 60%. of the elderly live with their children in Japan. So in the past only few Japanese people real i zed the importance of the public home help service especially home helpers. But recently more and more Japanese people have realized that they need better public home help service . Ministry of Health and Welfare also realized the importance of the home service and has the plan, so called "Gold Plan", to increase the number of home helpers from 23,629 (in 1987) to l00.000 (in 2000). In the current Japanese situation, it usually takes one week or one month to get the home helpers' visit after the farmilies apply for the social welfare office at the district. Moreover the families can get the home help service only on the week days at the day time from 9 o'clock to 5 o'clock. Only once a day, maximum three or six times in a week(one visit is about two hours help , the frequency of the service differs at the municipalities ) . On the other hand, in Sweden they can get the home help service 24 hours including sunday and several times in a day. Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare forecasts that about l million "Bedridden Elderly" will exist in 2000. More and more home help service is needed in Japan, otherwise the families who take care of the "Bedridden Elderly" by themselves will "burn out" sooner or later. And there are two main reasons why so many bedridden elderly and the senile dementia elderly stay at home in Japan. One of the reasons is that the number of institutions are very few. And another reason is that the QOL at the institutions in Japan is too bad. In chapter.5, I will write about the facilities for the aged in Japan.
Since the mid-1960's the number of handicapped and elderly people receiving home help has more than trebled. These groups increased particularly during the late 1960's and the 1970's. In 1990 some 17% of Sweden's old-age pensioners(>65) received some form of home help; for those aged 80+ the figure was around 40% . In 1990, the number of home helpers (including home helpers at the old age homes and sheltered housings, both part-time and full -time ) is 72 , 400 . In 1990 in Japan the number of home helpers is 38,000(excluding home helpers at the old age homes, calculated as full-time job) . The number of home helpers per 100 elderly(>65) is in Sweden 4.73 and in Japan 0.24. "Home Care in Japan" usually means the "Care by the Family at Home" because the number of home helpers are very few. But "Home Care in Sweden" means "Care at Home" . From the result of ULF study in 1980/81, about one third of the care at home is provided by the home helpers in Sweden.
In Sweden if relatives quit job and take care of their elderly parents, they can be employed by municipalities as care-givers. In 1990,6,681 persons were cared under this program. But in Japan there is not such system as support family care givers. So if relatives quit job and take care of their families, such families would become poorer and poorer.
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