Local governments nationwide achieved only 70 percent of their targeted increases in the number of people who can receive services at nursing care facilities during the three-year period from fiscal 2012, a survey conducted by The Yomiuri Shimbun has found.
The failure to meet the targets was attributed to sharp rises in construction costs and a shortage of workers for those facilities.
The central government last year announced a plan to reduce to zero the number of people who have to quit their jobs to care for relatives. It also declared a new target of increasing by 500,000 by the early 2020s the capacity of nursing care facilities.
The government will likely need to step up measures to achieve these goals through such means as securing human resources, as the survey results indicate that circumstances are too difficult to even meet the targets already put in place.
Local governments are supposed to draw up plans on nursing care services every three years. The survey was conducted last month on 90 local governments — prefectures, ordinance-designated major cities and Tokyo’s 23 wards. They were surveyed on their plans and achievements with regard to major nursing care facilities — including those for the elderly in need of special care, those providing some medical services for the elderly, and fee-charging homes for the elderly — for the three years up through fiscal 2014. The Yomiuri Shimbun obtained responses from all the local governments.
The survey results show that local governments nationwide planned to increase the capacity of those facilities by 198,158 in total over the three years, but that they actually increased capacity by 143,257, or 72 percent of the planned boost.
As for the capacity of special nursing care facilities for the elderly, the local governments planned to increase it by 86,999 in total, but achieved only 72,745, or 84 percent. Akita Prefecture had the highest goal achievement rate with regard to special nursing care facilities at 106 percent, and Okinawa Prefecture had the lowest at 49 percent, followed by Osaka Prefecture at 62 percent and Tokyo at 64 percent.
The results indicate that urban areas especially failed to achieve the planned quota.
By municipality, Tokyo’s central areas showed conspicuously low results, with seven wards below 50 percent.
The biggest reason for the failure was said to be higher construction costs, followed by difficulty in securing building sites and a shortage of nursing care workers.
The capacity of major nursing care service facilities totaled about 1.45 million by the end of fiscal 2014, the survey found.
The central government decided last year on a package that prioritizes reducing to zero the number of workers who must quit their jobs to care for the elderly — one of its pillars for a society in which all 100 million-plus people are dynamically engaged. It increased the target for boosting the capacity of nursing care facilities from 340,000 to 500,000 by including the use of certain types of residential homes for the elderly.
It also included ¥138.4 billion for the construction of nursing facilities and training caregivers in a supplementary budget for fiscal 2015.
Twelve local governments, or 13 percent of total, said they would consider raising their target for increasing capacity in accordance with the central government’s plan. Of these, many said higher premiums for nursing care insurance and personnel shortages were major problems to be dealt with.
Eight local governments said it appeared difficult to increase their target, six said it was not necessary to increase it, and the remaining governments said they could not decide at present.
“Even if we construct such facilities to meet the current demand, this will result in waste in the future when the number of elderly decreases,” one respondent said.(The Yomiuri Shimbun)
Link: http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002673634
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