Facing
with an upcoming of ageing society, the Thai government has to prepare itself
in coping with the situation. The Thai policymakers, including other stakeholders,
have to aggressively develop such mechanism in order to respond to this
emerging challenge. To deal with upcoming
aging society for a medium income country like Thailand, support and services
for the aged in Thailand must be provided by a large number of government
programs ranged from community-level to national level, as well as
programs/support from voluntary sectors (particularly families and volunteer
cares) and from private for profit sector and the private not-for-profit
sector.
Supporting of the government level to the Thai
elderly is considerably large by observing from its budget allocation. For
instant, during the fiscal year 2011, the Thai bureau of budget announced to
allocate 129,642.2 million baht for the social welfare provided to the Thai
elderly, which is about 18.7 percent increased from 109,216.2 million baht last
year. Among those social welfare and social assistance, allocation to elderly
welfare has also shown the largest shared as high as around 93 percent of its
total spending or around 6.2 percent of total budget (social welfare and
assistance has shared around 6.7 percent of the total budget).
Among those budgets, it includes both
income-generating programs such as social welfare and non-income programs
provided to the elderly. Since in the recent years the tendency in policy terms
is for creating income support program, as well as the pension programs among
the Thai elderly, budget allocation on this part is expected to be substantially
increased in the near future. Besides
the government support that are likely to confront them on an adequately scale,
some organizations outside the government are also concerned about
population ageing
by having ranges of supporting and assistance programs.
Since
the enactment of the Senior Citizens Act of B.E. 2546 (2003), there have been a
number both government and private organization that have been taking part in
the provision of benefits for the elderly. These benefits aims allowing the
elderly to live in secure and good quality in their community Such benefits include
health care benefit, protection, income security, accommodation and access to
legal protection
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The
National Senior Citizens’ Day.
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Basic
pension for Senior Citizens.
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National
system for saving for the purpose of retirement pension.
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Home
care volunteers for the elderly.
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Public
relations.
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Community
all-purpose centers for the elderly program (pilot).
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Monitoring
and implementation of the National Plan for Senior Citizens.
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Monitoring
of senior citizens right in accordance with the Senior Citizen Act, B.E. 2546.
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Promotion
and mobilization of the agenda on long-term elderly care.
To
understand the presence of these tasks, this paper aims to survey the overview
of non-income programs and welfare provided for the Thai elderly which
includes, for example, health and social care, the roles of volunteers,
promotion of participatory processes, and welfare on housing and accommodation
In line with the emphasis of the family as ultimately
responsible for elderly members, long term residences for care giving to
the elderly are aged are provided by the Thai government. The Department
of Social Welfare, at that time under the Ministry of Labour and Social
Welfare, founded the first social service centre for elderly in 1979. The
centers provide in-house services and emergency shelter for older persons. The
in-house services provided include day-care, therapeutic and rehabilitation
services, medical screening and treatment, counseling, religious and recreation
activities. Those older persons who are poor, homeless, and have no one to care
of them, were the main target group at that time.
1. Community
Volunteer Caregivers
The objectives of the program is to train and sponsor people to
serve as community-base volunteers to provide care and assistance to local
older persons, especially in remote rural area.
Initiated by the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security in
2002, the program was piloted in 4 provinces, expanded to 15 provinces in 2006,
approved for scaling up by the cabinet on April 2007, and then aimed to achieve
universal coverage by 2013.
As of 2009, the number of home
care volunteers had risen to 9,894 in 75 provinces and could look after 91,794
elderly people as illustrating in table below.
2.
Participation of elderly people in works and social
activities
Besides direct provision of health and social care to the elderly,
allowing them to participate in works and social activities should also enhance
their quality of life. The Bureau of empowerment for Older Persons started the
project, firstly as pilot projects in 7 provinces (Chiang Mai, Phitsanulok,
Khon Kaen, Sakon Nakhon, Pattalung, Chonburi and Phetchaburi) with an aim to
use the center for various activities for the elderly and other community
members. Managed under the local authority, the center aim providing activities
related to the promotion of opportunities for older people to learn and develop
new skills, and encourage them to take part in social activities within the
community which would also stimulate them further develop the physical, mental,
emotional, social and intellectual aspects of themselves. In 2009, the centers
were on its performance, the evaluations have shown that the project was a
sound initiative and the scaling up of the project should be supported. It was
also found that a community all-purpose center could accommodate between
800-1000 people participating various activities during the day.
To
improve the quality of life among the Thai elderly in acceding for information
relating to old age, through various media, the
concept of ‘study at your convenience’ was established by the Ministry of
Education to promote self-learning in among elderly as well as encouraging them
to access information and knowledge from the different media. Ministry of
Education has set up the “Elderly Television (ETV), a television channel, as
well as radio programs and exhibition for the elderly. The ‘study at your
convenience’ program would allow the elderly to learn about how their
counterparts live.
Further
to the formal and non-formal education systems, elderly may gain new specific
knowledge from taking short courses under the Office of Non-Formal Education
Promotion, Ministry of Education, as follow
1) Continuing professional development
This
course aims development new knowledge of the elderly for their occupational needs
in order to allow them to remain in a job and earn income. These courses
include agricultural course, art,
handicraft, traditional medicine and astrology.
2) Daily living skill development
This
course aims enhancing knowledge and skills according to individual needs and to
stimulate the thoughts of elderly people to enable them to manage themselves
and the environment around them. These courses are, for example, Chinese
language for communication course, basic singing course, and basic internet and
computer courses.
3) Social and community development
The
courses are designed to integrate knowledge and skills which aim for strengthening
elderly participation to society and community in accordance to the sufficiency
economy philosophy.
In
the 2009, there were 90,103 elderly people who had attended a continuous education
course. Most of the elderly took courses
on daily living skill development (32,957 people or
36.6%),
followed by social and community development courses (32,518 or 36.1%). This
was an indication which showed that elderly people were interested in adapting
their lifestyle and take part in social development activities
Reference
Chuharak, Somsak,
Darikarniert, Ladda, Kaewket, Warittha, Thananchai, Chutharat, Ruangsiri,
Suthida, Aussawakaewfa, Nuttakan (2009) Situation
of the Thai Elderly 2009, Bangkok: Foundation of Thai Gerontology Research
and Development Institute.