China Nursing-Home Fire Spurs Soul-Searching – WSJ Article Features Commentary by IEMS’ Albert Park
In a Wall Street Journal article on a fire which took dozens of lives in an elderly Chinese nursing home in China’s Henan province, IEMS Director Albert Park gave some of his expertise on the topic of China’s demographic aging, and the progress and pitfalls currently seen in the relatively new and burgeoning elder care industry in China.
As Albert Park told the WSJ:
The rest-home industry is still small, said Albert Park, a professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, as is the portion of the elderly living in such institutions.
“The tradition in China is that families take care of their older people,” he said. “But it’s a rapidly growing sector.” In the northeastern city of Tianjin, for example, the number of homes grew to more than 136 in 2011 from just 11 before 1990, according to a 2011 research paper.
“This tragedy seems to be related to much more general issues in China, like problems with quality and building codes.”
Read the full article: via WSJ (subscription required)
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