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Foreign domestic workers providing long-term care for frail seniors at home

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 July 2018

Sora Yasri
Affiliation:
KMT Primary Care Center, Bangkok, Thailand
Viroj Wiwanitkit
Affiliation:
Hainan Medical University, Haikou, Hainan, China

Extract

We read the article on “‘I can't do this alone’: a study on foreign domestic workers providing long-term care for frail seniors at home” with a great interest (Tam et al., 2017). Tam et al. (2017) noted that “[i]mproving FDWs' access to training courses in eldercare, providing them with more emotional support, engaging employers to create healthy caregiving spaces at home, and improving access to senior care services can be helpful.” This finding is very interesting. In fact, FDW service is common in several countries and approved for usefulness (Østbye et al., 2013). Of interest, the FDWs are usually from the poor developing countries. It is no doubt that the FDWs usually have low education level. Therefore, the education for them has to be carefully considered. We would like to share ideas from Thailand, where several FDW from nearby countries are currently employed. At present, there are many local schools offering inexpensive short course training on home care for elderly people and this becomes a popular course for FDW to attend. Nowadays, before employment, the employers usually ask for certification for verification of the proficiency of the FDW.

Information

Type
Letter to the Editor
Copyright
Copyright © International Psychogeriatric Association 2018