Tomorrow is the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, the Double Ninth Festival, a traditional Chinese festival. The Double Ninth Festival advocates respecting and caring for the elderly. How to provide long-term service guarantees for the elderly? At present, Zhejiang is promoting high-quality development and building a common prosperity demonstration zone. On the eve of the Double Ninth Festival, reporters went to many places in Zhejiang to investigate new integrated reform measures to serve the elderly.
This year, Hangzhou Xiaoshan District relies on Zhejiang's "medical care and nursing assistance" integrated reform to improve home-based elderly care services, proactively provide door-to-door assessments for disabled and demented elderly people, and accurately promote elderly care services.
Yu Liyan, the care steward of Guangde Community in Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang: In the mobile client "Xiaoshan Civil Affairs", we have a "care steward" system, which is equivalent to his personalized file, including his physical signs, satisfaction return visit for the love card, satisfaction return visit for the long-term care insurance, etc.
In early September, Guangde Community and the Community Health Service Station formed a health care team to conduct regular door-to-door follow-up visits to the elderly with severe disabilities and dementia. A month later, the staff visited Ren Tianrong's home again to learn about the fitting and medication of Ren Tianrong's hearing aids. Because the elderly's registered permanent residence was inconsistent with their place of residence, they had previously only enjoyed basic elderly care services and had not applied for long-term care insurance. The community relies on big data screening + housekeepers to come to the house to assist families in completing disability assessment declarations. Nowadays, multiple health care services are added to the elderly, with an additional monthly care guarantee of 1,500 yuan, and home services are provided on a monthly basis.
At present, 38 pilot villages in Xiaoshan have established 1,390 exclusive service lists for the elderly, covering 780 disabled and dementia elderly people, realizing dynamic management of key elderly people in one class.
Kindergarten creates new scene to serve the elderly
Not only the community, but also serving the elderly has been expanded to more new scenarios. Relying on the construction of the "one-elder-one-child" system, Zhejiang has moved "silver age classrooms" into kindergartens to provide care and services for the grandparents who pick up and drop off children.
With the new semester starting this fall, this kindergarten in Hangzhou is embarking on a new endeavor. During the evening care period, the children attend classes upstairs, while the grandparents waiting to be picked up attend the "Silver Age Class" on the fourth floor.
In the past, our ancestors had to wait outside the school for a long time. The kindergarten revitalizes idle classrooms and teachers, and offers public welfare courses for senior citizens, including calligraphy, wellness exercises, mobile photography, and health and wellness. Elders can sign up to participate on demand.
Zhou Xiangpeng, principal of Hangzhou Chongwen Ideal Kindergarten: Our kindergarten uses limited resources to provide these grandparents who are waiting in line, and offers them some classes during this hour, without excessive pressure, and can meet the needs of grandparents.
"Add a pair of chopsticks" to explore a new model of meal assistance for the elderly in mountainous areas
Urban elderly care services continue to upgrade, and mountainous elderly care services are also making breakthroughs. Meal assistance is an urgent need for the elderly. Elderly people in remote natural villages have difficulty traveling, making it difficult for them to enjoy centralized meal assistance. Jingning She Autonomous County in Lishui, Zhejiang has launched the "Add Two Chopsticks" neighborhood mutual assistance model for elderly care, allowing elderly people in mountainous areas to have hot meals at every meal.
Jingning is a typical representative of the "nine mountains, half water and half farmland" landform, with some natural villages scattered among the mountain streams.
For remote natural villages, it is difficult for elderly people living alone to cook and the cost of meal delivery is high. Starting from 2025, Jingning will launch the "Add Double Chopsticks" neighborhood mutual aid elderly care model, relying on the tradition of rural partnership to set up neighborhood meal stations. The elderly pay 2 yuan per meal out of pocket, and the remaining expenses are covered by charity subsidies, donations from village sages, and village collective funds.
Food assistance points are given priority to enthusiastic farmers, and the elderly can also use vegetables and poultry grown at home to deduct meal expenses. As meal time approaches, the elderly come to the neighborhood meal spot to help, and meat and vegetable ingredients are being served one after another.
The new model has compressed the average service radius of catering services in mountainous areas from 3 kilometers to less than 500 meters. Jingning has set up 15 mutual aid points on a pilot basis, serving more than 50 elderly people; Lishui has set up 106 points across the city, benefiting 520 elderly people, and the cost of meal assistance has dropped by 40%. The local government has issued work guidelines, and the disciplinary inspection department has overseen the standardized use of funds throughout the process.
Professional bathing assistance comes to your door to solve the difficulty of bathing for the disabled elderly
According to the list of key government assistance and charity assistance projects in 2026, this year, Jiangsu Wuxi Civil Affairs Bureau and Wuxi Charity Federation launched a warm-hearted bathing project for the elderly with severe disabilities. Before the Double Ninth Festival, 94-year-old Grandma Yu from Luoxiayuan in Xinwu District enjoyed this service as the first batch of beneficiaries.
At one o'clock in the afternoon, the bathing aid team came to your door with a full set of equipment. Grandma Yu has been bedridden for two years. The staff first assessed the elderly person's health status, tested blood pressure, heart rate and other vital signs, and confirmed that the body was up to standard before providing services. The bathing equipment was strictly disinfected throughout the process.
After more than 20 minutes, the old man successfully completed the bath. After the service, the staff will return to collect opinions.
This bathing assistance project is open to severely disabled elderly people over 80 years old in Wuxi. Charity funds fully pay for the bathing assistance project. The elderly can enjoy home bathing assistance no more than twice a year for free.
