Li Nannan, head nurse of an elderly care center in Nantong city in East China's Jiangsu province, has been dedicated to the elderly care industry with love, care and patience.

Li, in her 30s, gave up her secure job at a hospital 14 years ago and became a caregiver at Nantong Fuai Elderly Care Center.

Over the years, she has provided care to over 200 elderly residents, spending more time with them in the nursing home than she does with her parents. "Unlike hospitals, caring for the elderly in nursing homes requires not only professional nursing knowledge but also emotional investment," Li said.

Li Nannan, head nurse of an elderly care center in Nantong city in East China's Jiangsu province, and a deputy to the National People's Congress, talks with an elderly person at the nursing home. [Photo provided to npc.gov.cn]

Serving as a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC) for over seven years, she has submitted a number of suggestions on developing the elderly care industry to the annual NPC sessions.

Recognizing the inadequate support for the elderly care industry and the lack of standardized training and evaluation mechanism for caregivers, Li called for restoring caregiver qualification certificates. Her suggestions were highly regarded by the relevant government departments, leading to the restoration of the caregiver certification system that had been stagnant for years.

To address the issue of low salaries and difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff in the elderly care sector, she proposed strategies to open up career advancement pathways for caregivers. Thanks to her suggestion, Jiangsu has introduced guidelines on strengthening the workforce development in elderly care services, boosting the confidence of those involved in the sector, especially young people.

Li emphasized the necessity to attract more young people to join the elderly care workforce to meet the substantial demand for elderly care services. "Compared to the vast demand, the current supply of elderly care services remains significantly inadequate, and the quality of service needs to be improved," she said.

"The development of the elderly care service industry needs involvement of more young people. This is also the goal that I, as an NPC deputy, have been advocating for.”

In 2015, the fifth plenary session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee decided to establish a long-term care (LTC) insurance system to effectively meet the evolving needs of its aging population and the corresponding increasing demand for long-term care services. The following year, Nantong became one of the first 15 pilot cities nationwide to implement the LTC insurance.

Beyond her regular work, Li spent a lot of time in conducting in-depth research by visiting surrounding cities, local towns and residents' homes to learn about the development of the LTC insurance. She found that the implementation standards for the insurance vary among different cities in Jiangsu.

At this year's NPC session, Li submitted a suggestion regarding the LTC insurance standards and cross-region utilization to enhance the efficient operation of the LTC system.

"Care for the elderly is not a 'sunset industry' but a 'sunrise industry'," she said.

Xu Hang contributed to this story.