Thammasat University students interested in sociology, law, allied health sciences, political science, and related subjects may find it useful to participate in a free 15 November Zoom webinar on The Human Rights of Older Persons.

The event, on Wednesday, 15 November 2023 at 9am Bangkok time, is presented by the Human Rights Law Centre and Australian Human Rights Institute at the University of New South Wales, (UNSW Sydney).

The TU Library collection includes several books about different aspects of rights of older persons.

Students are invited to register at this link:

https://events.humanitix.com/copy-of-the-human-rights-of-older-persons

The event webpage notes:

Everyone should enjoy quality healthcare, a secure place to call home, and dignified treatment. But these basics are not always the reality for many older people, as highlighted just recently with the Royal Commission into Aged Care.

With one-in-six people in Australia aged over 65, what difference could enforceable human rights standards like human rights charters make to challenge injustice and improve government laws and services?

Hear from a panel of experts, including Patricia Sparrow (CEO of the Council of The Ageing), Mary Ann Baquero Geronimo (CEO of the Federation of Ethnic Community Councils of Australia), Helen Dalley-Fisher (Convener of Equality Rights Alliance), and Daney Faddoul (Campaign Manager at the Human Rights Law Centre).

Moderated by Professor Andrew Byrnes, and co-hosted by the Human Rights Law Centre and Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW Sydney.

In February, the website of the World Health Organization (WHO) stated:

Thailand’s leadership and innovations towards healthy ageing

Thailand is among the fastest ageing countries in the world. Of its 67 million population, 12 million Thais, are elderly according to the latest national statistics report. Since 2005, the country has been classified as an ‘aged society’ as people aged 60 years and above accounted for 10% of the population. It is expected that the country’s elderly population will increase to 28% and that Thailand will become a ‘super-aged society’ by the next decade.

With advances in the health care system, the number and proportion of people aged 60 years and older are on the rise both in Thailand and globally. In 2019, more than one billion of the world’s population was above the age of 60. This is expected to increase to 1.4 billion by 2030 and 2.1 billion by 2050.

While this demographic shift reflects the advancements in social and economic development and health, it also poses new challenges. Recognizing such demographic shifts and challenges, policymakers and related stakeholders in the South-East Asia Region have been working over the years on reforming policies and initiatives to tackle the challenges facing the well-being of older persons. […]

In 2021, the World Bank posted information online about Caring for Thailand’s Aging Population:

Key Findings

Thailand has already made considerable progress in recognizing the aging challenge and has initiated policy reforms and development programs to address it at both national and local levels. The country is now working to expand access to long-term care at the community level as part of existing volunteer-supported primary health care system.

The report assesses the current and future demand for long-term care services in Thailand as well as highlights opportunities and constraints to grow access to long-term care.

Most elderly Thais age in their homes and are looked after by their families but the traditional familial care arrangement is becoming increasingly difficult for many families as the ratio of elderly to working-age Thais increases. In the next two decades, the number of Thais over 80 requiring assistance is projected to increase over six-fold to almost 2.5 million.

Most in need of elder care continue to depend on family and community care as the institutional long-term care costs are high and most Thais cannot can afford it without government support.

Thailand’s Universal Coverage Scheme does not currently cover any institutional long-term care due to its high cost. Institutional care services remain underinsured even for the elderly with high needs (that is, elderly with dementia, bedridden elderly), and programs to help families with these expenses are limited in coverage.

There are shortages of suitably trained aged care workers and lack of appropriate training for family carers and aged care workers.

The growing demand for aged care services presents opportunities for business investment and job creation. There is an opportunity to fill the gaps in the supply of affordable and adequate care (at home, in communities and in institutions care) for elders with long-term care needs. The development of the high-end retirement community living options for the more affluent elders can be considered to create more jobs in the industry.

The report makes the following policy recommendations on how to further support the expansion of the long-term care sector:

• Strengthen the government’s stewardship role in aged care. This includes improving capacity for needs assessment (at the level of service delivery) and also for forecasting care needs (at the policy level) and develop information system with reliable data.
• Build a fiscally sustainable system for financing long-term care to ensure universal access, based on needs assessment. Thailand can transition to a more formalized model of long-term care financing by, for example, broadening the universal health coverage scheme to include targeted long-term care subsidies to those deemed most in need.
• Foster the development of industry associations and public-private partnerships responding to the growing demand for long-term care services in the private market.
• Strengthen the community support system especially in areas with low capacity.
• Invest in enhanced training for care workers and consider how to tap migrant labor pools for jobs where local labor supply is limited.
• Review and gradually increase the Old Age Allowance benefit amount.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Thailand also posted a Comprehensive Policy Framework: A Life-Cycle Approach to Ageing in Thailand.

Recommendations included:

(a) Take measures to provide universal and equal access to primary health care and establish community health programmes for older persons;

(b) Support local communities in providing health support services to older persons;

(c) Include traditional medicine in primary health-care programmes where appropriate and beneficial;

(d) Train primary health-care workers and social workers in basic gerontology and geriatrics;

(e) Encourage, at all levels, arrangements and incentives to mobilize commercial enterprises, especially pharmaceutical enterprises, to invest in research aimed at finding remedies that can be provided at affordable prices for diseases that particularly afflict older persons in developing countries and invite the World Health Organization to consider improving partnerships between the public and private sectors in the area of health research.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)