Development of Hospice Care Service for the Elderly in China

Against the backdrop of the aging society, we need to make great efforts to develop the hospice care service for the elderly if we want to comprehensively improve “the Quality of Death” and enable more old people to enjoy benefits of dying peacefully. This essay firstly reviews the policies and practices of the development of hospice care for the elderly in China, and we discover that main obstacles that hinder its development are institutional barriers, difficulties in financing, a lack of personnel, and low acceptance rate of the general public. Considering the current construction of socialized pension service system in China, we make institutional exploration in the development of the hospice care of the elderly in China. And we hold that these are key ways to develop this career to “get through” the lifeblood of the medical and health services and the hospice care service, “extend” the socialized system of elderly care service to this service, enhance the “input” in this service, and fully develop the long-acting “safeguard” mechanism for the development of this service.