Hebei Cultivates 290 Standardized Regional Senior Care Centers in First Half of the Year

Standardized construction leads to more professional services. Recently, at the Sansi Town Regional Senior Care Center in Nanhe District, Xingtai City, the cool breeze blew under a constant-temperature canopy in the courtyard, where several elderly residents sat together chatting. 83-year-old Bai Xiaoguo has lived there for nearly a year. "My children were worried, but once I came here, I didn't want to leave. I live well and eat well, with a different menu every meal," the elderly woman said. Her four children work outside the city, and after her husband passed away, she lived alone.

Based on an existing private senior care institution, Sansi Town upgraded the regional center to meet the standards of a two-star senior care facility. It was restructured into five functional zones: full-time care, daytime care, medical care, meal services, and cultural activities, and has now been accepted and put into operation. Che Like, the center's director, explained that triple rooms were converted to double rooms, the original cement floors were replaced with slip-resistant tiles, safety handrails and emergency call buttons were installed in the bathrooms, old 1-meter-wide beds were swapped for 1.25-meter-wide, extended beds, and a new batch of nursing beds was added.

This transformation is not an isolated case. The "Hebei Province 2026 People's Livelihood Project Implementation Plan" clearly proposes to cultivate 400 standardized regional senior care centers at the town and street level. In the first half of this year, the province completed the cultivation of 290 centers, achieving 72.5% of the annual target. How are the standards determined for these centers? In Xingtai City, the cultivation work unifies construction standards and service norms, adhering to the principle of "leveraging existing resources, improving quality and efficiency" without large-scale demolition and construction. It relies on transforming and upgrading existing private institutions and public nursing homes, promoting the integration of medical and elderly care resources.

Hengshui City clearly stipulates that centralized care areas must have no fewer than 10 beds, with nursing beds accounting for at least 80%. Daytime care areas must provide life care and meal services, with no fewer than three service functions. While hardware improvements are visible, the upgrade in services is even more heartwarming. Not long ago, Yao Huxi, a resident of the Sansi Town Regional Senior Care Center, suddenly had difficulty swallowing and slurred speech while eating fruit. A caregiver immediately noticed the anomaly and notified the on-site clinic doctor for emergency treatment, simultaneously calling 120 and contacting the family. From the onset of symptoms to reaching the emergency room, it took less than 10 minutes. The doctor later diagnosed a recurrence of a chronic cardiovascular and cerebrovascular condition. Due to timely treatment, Yao recovered and was discharged after a week of hospitalization.

The Sansi Town Regional Senior Care Center currently has 13 certified caregivers who receive weekly skill training. The center's clinic is also staffed with dedicated medical personnel who monitor the elderly's blood pressure, blood sugar, and other health indicators daily. It has signed a green channel referral agreement with the district people's hospital, ensuring that patients can be transported within 10 minutes in case of a sudden emergency. Hebei Province has also included nursing caregivers in the list of urgently needed professions and provides training subsidies. This year, the province plans to add over 3,000 certified caregivers and will continue to enhance the professional skills of practitioners through a four-level training mechanism involving the province, city, county, and institutions.

During the cultivation process, local governments tailored approaches based on their specific conditions, exploring diverse paths. In Yuxian County, the idle Beidongzhuang Primary School was transformed into the Taohua Town Regional Senior Care Center, which was jointly built with the happiness homes and regional centers of several nearby villages. "This maximizes the use of funds, achieves functional complementarity, and is more conducive to the effective implementation of 'safety-net' centralized care," said Xu Qian, the party secretary of Taohua Town. In Guantao County, two regional senior care centers were established in Guantao Town and Nancunxiang Township, integrating functions such as full-time care and medical health to achieve full coverage of county-level elderly care services. From having a place for elderly care to achieving high-quality senior care, Hebei Province is accelerating the construction of standardized regional senior care centers, weaving a dense service network to bring professional and attentive care to the elderly, supporting their golden years.