The Purpose and Significance of Mutual Elderly Care

Since crossing into the new century, China's demographic dividend is disappearing, and the society is stepping into the structural transformation stage of aging. According to statistics, the number of elderly people in China reached 202 million at the end of 2013, accounting for 14.8% of the country's total population. Elderly people are increasingly showing trends of aging and empty nesting, and the number of disabled and semi-disabled elderly people in need of care has increased dramatically. At present, China's elderly service system is still in its infancy, and the shortage of professionally qualified caregivers is prominent. For example, there are only 20,000 people who have obtained the qualification of elderly caregiver nationwide, and according to the international demand for caregivers of 5:1, there is a shortfall of nearly 10 million people. It is difficult to alleviate the shortage of caregivers in a short period of time due to factors such as misunderstanding of society's conception of elderly caregivers, lower treatment of professional caregivers, and insufficient number of training institutions.

Tianlaiquan, as a large-scale comprehensive resort pension community in Hainan, is known in the industry for its complete service system and standardized service. In recent years of exploration and practice, to find out a new type of vacation pension new ideas - "mutual aid type pension" service.

One, "Mutual Elderly", a new model of elderly service

"Mutual Elderly" service, that is, the elderly to play their respective strengths, to help around the elderly in need of help, they are both the service provider, but also to be served. In other words, healthy elderly people can help the weak elderly people, young elderly people can help the old elderly people, and elderly people with skills can help the elderly people who need skill support. The use of mutual aid in old age combined with the services of the community elderly institutions can not only solve the problem of insufficient community resources for the elderly, to achieve the purpose of reducing the cost of services, but also allow the elderly who provide mutual aid services to receive a certain amount of remuneration themselves, thus reducing the cost of their old age life.

In the past, we have always emphasized that the elderly is a vulnerable group, the object of social care and concern. In fact, with the improvement of people's standard of living as well as the progress of science and technology, many of the people who have just entered the ranks of the elderly are in a relatively vigorous stage of their physical condition and professional ability, and they not only have the ability to help the disadvantaged elderly, but also have the will to help.　

In traditional Chinese culture, there are three joys of old age, called "contentment, self-fulfillment, and helping others to be happy", which are the three levels of happiness in old age, and helping others to be happy refers to a mutual-help style of old age. Among the five principles advocated in Resolution 46 of the United Nations Principles for Older Persons adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1991, there is a principle of "participation", which is expressed as follows: Older persons should be able to seek and develop opportunities to serve the community and to take up positions commensurate with their interests and abilities as voluntary workers. In the document Opinions on Further Strengthening the Work of Retired Cadres in the New Circumstances, the Central Government put forward "six old things" in respect of the retired life of old cadres, namely: "to be nourished, to be given medical care, to be given instruction, to be given education, to be given education, to be given enjoyment, and to be given a sense of worthiness". In the six words of "nourishment, medical care, education, learning, joy, for", "for" is the highest stage, the elderly retirement life should always be integrated into the community, the pursuit of opportunities to give full play to their potential to serve the community and realize their own value.