The population of people aged 65 years or older in Kaohsiung City reached 426,534 in June 2018, constituting 15.38% of the total city population of 2,773,177 and exceeding the 14% threshold for an aged society. According to the disability rate of 12.7% among older adults, it can be assumed that more than 50,000 of Kaohsiung’s older adults are disabled. As the population of older adults continues to grow, the demand for long-term care will increase.
According to the Long-Term Care Services Act and in coordination with the 10-Year Long-Term Care Plan 2.0 by the central government, the Kaohsiung City government introduced the Long-Term ABC Comprehensive Community Care Model, but was confronted with the following problems: social problems associated with stress in care provision, group differences in long-term care needs, disorganized laws related to long-term care, problems related to the division of responsibility among agencies such as the Social Affairs Bureau and Department of Health, insufficient home care personnel, gender imbalances in long-term care personnel, and an urban–rural divide.
According to the Five Major Frameworks of Administrative Law, namely principle, organization, authority, remedy, and supervision, this paper presents the problems in the long-term care system in Kaohsiung City and proposes solutions accordingly.
This paper provides the following 10 suggestions: (1) home care services should be oriented toward personal care; (2) the local long-term care industry should be developed to facilitate youth employment; (3) long-term care should be regarded as a social responsibility; (4) methods for accessing financial sources related to long-term care should be diversified; (5) people’s participation in public construction should be encouraged to improve the long-term care statuses in remote and rural regions; (6) long-term care policies for indigenous people should be formulated; (7) a committee should be formed to solve problems associated with gender mainstreaming in long-term care; (8) a deputy mayor should be charged with the responsibility of implementing long-term care policies; (9) local data should be generalized and analyzed; (10) laws should be autonomously established for developing home and medical care services.