The global Asian media site Pangea Today reports on this interesting development in caring for our most vulnerable. The story originally comes from the Japan Times:
'Demographic trends are a major issue in Japan, with lower birth rates and the elderly making up a quarter of the total population. Many working mothers say they need more government support, such as free daycare.
One such facility in the Toyama prefecture came up the idea to combine an older people’s nursing home and daycare for kids whose parents are at work during the day.
“We see no need to separate the elderly from the children, or the disabled from the able-bodied,” the founder of the facility said.
The logic is that the children’s presence alone is enough to make older people smile, and combining the two age groups is also a “natural scene,” as this combination is how people normally live in their own homes.
About 1,400 nursing homes and daycare centers across Japan have adopted this policy.' http://www.pangeatoday.com/all-in-one-solution-nursing-home-and-daycare-for-kids/?region=asia&orderBy=popular&category=asia
Our own newspapers often report on concerns around the care and stimulation offered to many of our institutionalised elderly. We know that many old people enjoy contact with youngster and we know, due to migration or geographical location, many young children are now growing up without the input of an older 'grandparent' generation.
Could this Japanese model of mixed care be a solution in our country or do these two age groups have distinct and separate needs with attempts to care for them together potentially putting one or both groups at risk?
Would you leave your young child to be looked after in a nursing home? Would your elderly parent or grandparent enjoy being cared for alongside young children?
Would this encourage or discourage staff to work in this sector?
Obviously some elderly need to be housed in secure accomodation but for lower level nursing home patients could it work?
What do you think?
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