Hou Dong Yu Home Care

Bringing quality Services
to China’s Rural Poor

Care of the Elderly “Family style”

Fr. Paul Xi is a caring person, not satisfied simply to minister spiritually to the people in his parish, he has been for a long time attending to their social needs as well, aided by parishioners who have been inspired by his can do attitude to the needs of the poor.

In 2003 he started a home for the elderly on the admirable principle that, with local contributions, elderly farmers without relatives to care for them could themselves live better together than on their own. The seemingly simple “commune” concept foundered on the problems of modern China, too many people in need and too little support for the elderly at the home as they became less sprightly and unable to “do for themselves” as originally envisaged.

Never one to be upset by such matters, he realized that there were never going to be enough places to offer the growing number of elderly in need. Government statistics support his intuition. People over the age of 60 total 160 million, and 3-5 million more are added every year. Chinese people still think of themselves as being very caring of the elderly and in general they are, but the assumption that “their family will take care of them” fails to appreciate that urbanization and the one child policy have turned such expectations on their head. 1% of the elderly have no relatives, a figure exacerbated by those who live far from their children.. Many villages are now home to only the elderly, while the children have left for the city for work. Elderly villagers may, technically, have families to take care of them, but in effect they too are alone in their old age.

Fr. Xi has set up what is a radically new model of elderly care for rural China, even if it is well known in the West. Home based care has become an integral part of elderly care services abroad, but the model is still in its infancy here, with no welfare system to support its implementation for those without means to buy in such services. Add to the mix rural conservatism and the barriers to implementation become serious. Fr. Xi is rising to the challenge and has begun to offer the service to an initial group of 85 seniors scattered across Eastern Xingtai County in Hebei, China. The existing home, is part of the programme offering holidays to the elderly in the picturesque setting of the elderly home, by rotation through the year.

This model of elderly care has much greater sustainability than does the original approach, as well as being able to offer support services to a much greater number of elderly. On present estimates (the programme is in its infancy) they expect that it will cost about 100 rmb a month to care for one elderly person (compared to three times that in even the most basic home). Volunteers take up much of the effort, and local donors have bought him a van. Some costs are unavoidable however, and without a welfare system, they depend on donations to provide the service. Currently 20% of those donations are raised locally.

BRICKS is committed to working with Fr Xi and his team, building their capacity to offer this kind of service. Western countries are very familiar with this approach, but for rural Hebei, there are no models of best practice to assist them. BRICKS will bring those models nearer to them though training programmes with other partners. Part of the commitment is to help them raise the funds to offer this service. We hope that you will want to help China’s rural poor have a more dignified old age by contributing to this service.

€11 euro, (US$15, GB£10) will guarantee home care service to one shut-in for one month and also show that this model of home care is not a pipe dream suited only to western countries, but that even in rural China it is possible to offer quality elderly care “family style”.

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