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Meal program sloppy, say seniors
By Wu Yiyao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-25 07:50
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Xi Jufen (left), 84 and her daughter Wang Hongbing, 59, have lunch at the Xiaolinxiao Restaurant on Wednesday. The Xiaoguan community where they live gives out 100-yuan coupons each month for elders in the community. Yan Xiaoqing / China Daily |
Pensioners complain about food quality, prices and services
A catering program designed to help elderly people in Beijing get affordable and healthy meals, which was implemented three months ago, has met with limited success, according to Beijing seniors and participating restaurants.
One part of a new plan known as "nine policies for caring for senior citizens'"urged residential communities and district authorities to set up a "tables for the elderly" program to meet the dining needs of seniors. Citizens over the age of 80 with Beijing household registration can receive monthly coupons worth a total of 100 yuan through the plan.
Catering services and restaurants that join the "tables for the elderly" program are supposed to provide affordable and healthy food to elderly people, delivered to their homes on request.
The seniors pay for the meals with the coupons, which the caterers and restaurants can redeem for cash with the civil affairs authorities.
But Cui Jilin, an 82-year-old resident in Chongwen district who was widowed three years ago, said he has been eating three meals a day at a Chinese fastfood chain restaurant near Chongwenmen market since the restaurant started the "tables for the elderly" service in February, but is far from satisfied.
Cui said all his children are busy with work and worry about him cooking alone.
"It's expensive but my children said it's safer to eat at the restaurant than cooking by myself," he said.
Cui said that, on average, a breakfast costs about five yuan, lunch 15 yuan and dinner 10 yuan, which means half of his pension goes on meals.
"The 100-yuan coupon does not go far enough," Cui said. "In addition, you definitely get bored eating basically the same thing for two months."
Cui said he doesn't request delivery because he tried it once and the food arrived cold.
The elderly aren't the only ones complaining about the program. Catering services and restaurants that participate in it say doing so means losing money.
The first participant restaurant in the "tables for the elderly" program closed due to financial difficulties in early March.
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"The set menu was not profitable at all," said Zhang Liang, the former manager of the restaurant, according to Beijing News.
The restaurant used to serve about 50 senior citizens each day.
Guo Shan, a staff member at a participating restaurant in Chaoyang district, said some staff are not willing to help the elderly because they place their orders slowly and don't order much.
"We are not making money out of this service," said a staff member surnamed Wang at another participating restaurant, which serves 8-yuan set meals.
Despite the fact that revenue from senior citizens' consumption is exempted from tax, joining the dining program did not boost profits, said a spokesman with a catering and restaurant chain who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"Our cost increases when we serve the elderly, because we need to invest more in manpower to provide extra help to senior customers," he said. "It also takes a couple of weeks to redeem the coupons from authorities, so cash flow is affected."
He said his employer now sees the "tables for the elderly" program as benevolent rather than lucrative.
A senior citizen center on the outskirts of Beijing, which ran a similar program to "tables for the elderly" long before the official program began was closed for being "unqualified" not long after the official program was launched.
The Pingguoyuan senior citizen center in Shijingshan district closed last Friday, after serving 5-yuan meals and offering entertainment facilities for 10 local seniors for the last three years. The center was the first of its kind in Beijing.
Zhang Weimin, director of the center, said it was an experiment in trying new ways for caring the elderly.
"But the facilities, our financial situation and the services we offered did not meet criteria set out in the official program," Zhang said. "We closed the center because it is not qualified any longer."
Some of the seniors who used the facility reportedly complained about degraded standards when the center was renovated in late October last year.
Zhang said a new center will open to replace the old one but would not say when.
There are currently about 1,500 catering services or restaurants participating in the "tables for the elderly" program.
The program plans to expand enough to meet the needs of all senior citizens in Beijing by May 1, said Wu Shiming, director of the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau.
More than 300,000 residents in Beijing are older than 80, according to the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau.
