Support for rural elderly to reduce suicides

Residents have a buffet at Hongheyuan, a high-end nursing home in Haikou, Hainan province, Jan 22, 2013. The nursing home has hired nutritionists and chefs to make healthy food. [Photo/Icpress.cn]

The high suicide rate among the rural elderly is a trend that is likely to continue for a while, given China's aging population and urbanization drive, if it remains a left-behind social problem.

On the one hand, population aging will take place even earlier than usual among some groups of people with disabilities. On the other, an increasing number of youngsters in rural areas will move to the cities in search of a better life, leaving their aging parents behind unattended because of their inability to financially support the whole family in a city.

In all likelihood, many of these elderly rural residents will resort to suicide without enough care and support. Therefore, action urgently needs to be taken to curb the trend.

For starters, the prevention of suicides by the elderly in the countryside should be prioritized in the modernization of the management of Chinese rural regions. The implementation of the new endowment insurance and rural cooperative medical system has proved efficient in curbing the rising suicide rate, because it has injected hope into the life expectations of the aged in rural areas.

Recently, the government has begun to ease the longstanding household registration system that has separated urban and rural residents for decades with regards to their status and the social welfare available to them. This should also serve as the tipping point for the fairer unification of the social security and endowment insurance for citizens aged 70 or above, regardless of their residence. Likewise, it calls for further improvement in the cooperative medical system to provide better medical treatment to the elderly, especially those residents in rural areas who are more than 70 years old.