XN000022-1995-10-13 — Page 33

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Call for response to challenge of meeting needs of elderly

There is an urgent need for the welfare sector to respond to the challenge of meeting the special needs of the elderly and help them to continue to live in the community and lead decent and dignified lives.

This was stated by Administrator, Hospital Services Department, Mrs Rose Goodstadt today (Friday) when she opened the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals' Anita Mui Day Care Centre.

Mrs Goodstadt said the Governor in his Policy Address on Wednesday said the Government would spend $9 billion this year on services for the elderly, an increase of

per cent in real terms over the previous year.

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She said there was, however, another important message in the Policy Address that was the need to ensure that social services adjust to meet the changing needs of the most vulnerable groups in the community.

"Among the very vulnerable are the growing numbers of the 'old-old', the over- 80-year-olds, who suffer from increasingly frail physical health and serious threats to their mental well-being," she said.

"In Hong Kong 20 years ago, there were only about 30,000 persons aged over 80. Today there are about 100,000. At the same time, the proportion of the 'old-old' has increased to over 17 per cent of the elderly population as a whole."

Mrs Goodstadt said this meant that the problems of the elderly had changed and that the services for them must respond to this changing demand.

"Our mental facilities are expanding to meet this growing need. Our mental hospitals are already heavily utilised by elderly patients: occupying about 600 out of the total of 3,800 beds," she said.

She added that there were also about two hundred psychogeriatric beds in our major general hospitals and six psychogeriatric teams had also been set up in the last two years providing psychiatric support for elderly patients in general hospitals, care- and-attention homes, as well as day treatment and community care.

"However, this positive response by our hospitals and health services is not enough," Mrs Goodstadt said.

"The community's attitudes must also change.