China’s elderly citizens are in bad need of better nursing and medical care, from simple physical exams, to family doctors and health services to Traditional Chinese Medicine, according to the China Family Development Report 2015 that the National Health and Family Planning Commission published, on May 13.

The report is based on a national survey the commission arranged last year, which covered more than 32,000 families in all 31 provincial regions on the mainland, and found four major problem areas for old people -- disease, difficulty in taking care of themselves, no one to look after them if they get sick, and housing that is barrier-free.

It also found that 26.7 percent of the elderly don’t get care; while 58.1 percent have some form of chronic illness, such as hypertension or arthritis, with many more in cities suffering from hypertension, heart disease and diabetes than in rural areas.

Lu Jiehua, the professor of sociology at Peking University, comments, “At present, social services for the elderly are having a hard time meeting demand. And the number of elderly as a percentage of population in China will increase 0.4 percent annually, and the rural population aging is higher than cities.”

The report points to the fact that government departments need more policies that integrate and develop medical services and nursing and an information technology site based on family and community nursing for the elderly to provide integrated consultation, data management, chronic disease prevention, and aid and nursing for the elderly. And the integrated nursing and medical services should support nursing institutes, and encourage medical staff to practice in the institutes, and more attention given to personnel training.