New gov’t urged to popularize care services

Opposition Kuomintang (KMT) President-elect Ma Ying-jeou is slated to take office May 20, when a new, KMT administration will also be sworn in, ending eight years of rule by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration.

The Garden of Hope Foundation urged the future KMT administration to build community-based care packages that average people could afford.

Chi Hui-jung, executive director of the foundation, said she noticed that similar packages were included in the campaign platform of Ma and his running mate Vincent Siew, who were elected the next president and vice president of Taiwan Saturday in a decisive victory.

The Ma-Siew proposed packages, however, would require government subsidies, which most NGO and women’s activists groups do not think is helpful or feasible since the system may not be fully built by the time the subsidies are exhausted, Chi said.

Chi said that at present, low-income families cannot afford or do not have access to most nursing homes, kindergartens and nursery schools around the country, since the nursing homes are controlled by people in the healthcare sector, while the kindergartens or pre-school nurseries are operated by members of the supplementary education sector.

Chi also called for the Democratic Progressive Party — which was heavily defeated by the KMT in the just-concluded presidential election by over 2.2 million votes — to do some soul searching over its defeat in the poll before allying with civic groups to oversee the new KMT administration.

Meanwhile, Yang Wan-ying, deputy chairwoman of the civic group Awakening Foundation, called for the newly elected government to continue to promote “gender main streaming” efforts.

Yang called for members of the newly elected government to keep in mind that women should be treated equally whether in policy planning, budget allocation or distribution of resources.

Yang also urged the KMT-dominated legislature to pass several draft bills pertaining to women’s rights and workplace equality as soon as possible.

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