VOA常速英语2013--中国需要建立更多养老院

China’s Elderly Need Beds, Caregivers 中国需要建立更多养老院

BEIJING — China has the world’s largest population of citizens over age 65 and in the coming decades their numbers are expected to quickly grow. Already, officials are struggling to cope with the rising numbers of elderly at a time when there is a shortage of nursing home beds and certified 1 caregivers. 

Feng Jie is a trained nurse who decided 2 a year and half ago to leave her job at a state-run hospital and work with a private nursing company.

冯洁(音译)是一位接受过培训的护士，一年半前她决定辞去在国有医院的工作，然后在一家私人护理公司工作。

She says that unlike her job at the hospital, she now gets to spend more quality time with patients and as an added bonus her pay is better. Still, few have followed in her footsteps. "It was a risk [to come work here]. All of my classmates still work in hospitals. I thought that I'd give it a try because this industry, this type of job is still an emerging field,” she said.

她说与在医院的工作不同，现在她可以有更多黄金时光和病人在一起，而且额外的奖励也多了。不过很少人步她的后尘，“来这里工作是有风险的，我的同学们都还在医院工作，这个行业和这种工作是新兴的领域，所以我想试一下。”

China's population is aging at one of the fastest rates in the world. By the middle of the century, more than 450 million people will be over 60 years of age.

中国人口的老龄化速度是全世界最快的，截至本世纪中叶，有4.5亿多人将在60岁以上。

China lacks both the facilities and the staff to adequately care for the elderly, says Du Peng, director of the Institute of Gerontology at Renmin University - the only program of its kind in China. “We have four million beds available, one caretaker for every three elderly. We should have more than a million caretakers, if in the future we will have 30 million elderly then we need 10 million caretakers," she explained. "But at the moment in China every year only 6,000 gerontology professionals are certified.”

人民大学老年医学研究所的杜鹏(音译)说中国缺少为老年人提供的设施和人员，该研究所是中国唯一的此类研究项目。“我们有400万张床，每三个老人一位护士。我们应该增加100万护理人员，如果未来老年人人数达到3000万，那么就需要1000万护理人员。但现在中国只有6000名持有老年医学专业的护理人员。”

Right now most of China’s nursing homes are state owned, but through incentives 3 to private enterprises, caregivers and stipends 4 for the elderly, the government is looking to shake up the market.

目前中国的大多数养老院都是国有的，但通过向私企、护理人员提供激励，并为老年人提供补贴金，政府希望能发展这一市场。

Li Xinyue says such incentives helped her quickly find a job at a private nursing home after graduating.  “When I was still in school I thought about where I would work afterwards, and at the time the government was issuing some policies to assist private institutions…there were many privately 5 run institutions available, so there were more to choose from,” Li Xinyue stated.

李欣悦(音译)说这样的激励帮助自己毕业后很快在一家私人护理公司找到了工作，“在学校时我思考过毕业后到哪里工作，当时政府发布支持私有机构的政策，当时有很多私有机构可以进，所以可以有更多选择。”

In addition to cutting red tape to allow more foreign and private investment in elderly care, the government is testing ways to encourage caregivers to seek more training and keep certified nurses in the field.

除了削减繁琐程序使得更多外国和私人投资进入老年护理行业，政府还想办法鼓励护理人员接受更多培训，使更多有资格证的护士留在这个行业。

“It is a bit like the reform of China 's economic system thirty years ago, when it was mostly state owned enterprises and there was a break with that and a promotion 6 of economic development. Now we are seeing a similar thing with the break down of the bottleneck,” said Peng.

“这有点像30年前中国的经济体制改革，但是主要是国有企业，后来就打破这一现状，促进了经济发展。现在我们看到的情况类似，也是突破现有的瓶颈。”

As more elderly Chinese turn to nursing homes for care, authorities hope investors 7 see profit in the country’s demographic challenges, and add to the 400,000 nursing homes that now are mostly state run. 

随着越来越多的中国老年人到养老院接受护理，政府希望投资者能在本国的人口地理挑战中看到赢利点，在目前主要是国有养老院的基础上增加40万家养老院。