Executive Yuan to relax foreign care worker regulations

Staff writer, with CNA

The Executive Yuan on Thursday announced that regulations would be relaxed to allow foreign care workers to take care of people with “mild” disabilities aged 85 or older.

According to existing regulations, foreign care workers can only be hired to assist people who have “grave” physical or mental disability.

Foreigners can also be hired to care for people aged 80 or older who have been assessed to require heavily dependent care, as well as elderly people under the age of 80 who have been determined by a medical institution as requiring all-day care.

The rules are expected to be relaxed as early as next month.

It is estimated that 35,000 elderly people with mild disabilities nationwide, or about 60 percent of people aged 85 or over, will be able to acquire foreign care workers, Ministry of Labor official Liu Chug-chun (劉佳鈞) said.

The relaxation of the rules is aimed at providing better care for people with mild disabilities and to prevent their conditions from worsening, the Executive Yuan said.

After the new rules are implemented, care workers can apply for a position after a medical examination determines that the elderly candidate has mild disabilities, the agency said.

There are about 220,000 foreign care workers in Taiwan, mostly from Indonesia.