JCP survey shows nursing care service users find financial burdens unbearable

Japan Press Weekly

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JCP survey shows nursing care service users find financial burdens unbearable

Financial and other burdens on users of nursing care services have become unbearable because they are forced to refrain from using the services and the designation of the level of service requirements do not reflect their actual needs.

This was made apparent in a survey on the nursing care service system which the Japanese Communist Party Dietmembers Group conducted nationwide on the 10th year of the implementation of the system.

According to the JCP survey taken at 3,000 nursing care offices and 140 local municipalities, 76.2 percent out of 652 responding offices said that users refrain from using the nursing care services due to the heavy burdens incurred by the charges for the services. At 83.6 percent of the responding offices, the survey found that the actual condition of the elderly who need nursing care is not correctly reflected in the government’s standards for the level of services they can receive and that problems remain.

JCP Policy Commission Chair Koike Akira at a news conference in the Diet on June 9 published the survey results. He revealed that 50 percent of the 128 responding local municipalities are calling for an increased state share in funding the nursing care services because people’s burdens associated with the nursing care service premiums and fees for the services is beyond their means. He also said that 73.4 percent of visiting nursing care offices supplying helpers to home nursing are short-staffed.

Koike said, “People who work in the field of nursing care are facing increasing difficulties. The JCP will have the survey results reflected in its policies for the upcoming House of Councilors election to help resolve the difficulties.”

In the survey, a woman of 93, who has become bedridden after a recurrence of cerebral infarction, is under the care of a son in his fifties who had to quit his job to look after her at home. However, in spite of home nursing by family members, the financial burdens associated with home nursing provision are greater than that for hospitalization.

- Akahata, June 10, 2010