A meeting was held in the city of Changchun, Jilin province, on Aug 17, chinajilin.com reports, on promoting community nursing for the elderly, where citizen representatives, officials and experts discussed the methods and shared experiences on nursing communities and visited some communities in the city afterwards.

The elderly are waiting for regular checkup in a nursing center in a community in Jilin. [Photo/chinajilin.com]

Community nursing is becoming more common nationwide because it allows the elderly more access to residential care and services adjusted to their particular needs as a combination of family nursing and social nursing than the traditional elderly nursing institutions.

Pang Wenxi shows the sand table in the nursing center. [Photo/chinajilin.com]

After a pilot program in the Erdao district of Changchun, Jilin began tracking the development of community nursing and the use of food deliveries, medical care at home and recreational sites use in 218 of these communities involving nearly 240,000 people.

A local Party secretary in the Erdao district, Han Boqiang, explains, "We provide overall services to the elderly to help them in all aspects of life with some financial help from the government in the form of subsidies".

The elderly enjoying massage in a nursing center of a community in Kuancheng district , Changchun, Jilin province. [photo/chinajilin.com]

Pang Wenxi, who is in his 80s, comments that he comes to the center for the elderly every day for physical exercises and to watch a movie and, "I have lunch in the center every day and it’s really convenient. I also like playing sand table games with others here. It’s a lot of fun."

"I like enjoying massage and physical exercises here", said He Xiuyuan, a 76-year-old resident in a community in Kuancheng district, "and staff here are very nice and helpful".

One Jilin survey shows 98 percent of the elderly preferring to get their care at home while taking part in community nursing versus 2 percent who say they prefer a nursing home, meaning there is urgent need to promote community nursing, according to the provincial government.